AMERICUS — The cross-country Fuller Center cycling team traded their jerseys for work clothes Monday so they could hang gutters for local Fuller Center homeowners Chuck Davis and Thad Harris.

The cyclists, who are part of the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure biking 2,500 miles with stops at Fuller Center build sites along the way, arrived in Americus to a crowd of supporters at the Fuller Center office Saturday afternoon.

Fans and friends waited in the 96-degree Americus heat to applaud the team now more than halfway through their journey that began in Niagara Falls on June 20 and will end in New Orleans on Aug. 8. The trip was launched in part to raise $250,000 for The Fuller Center for Housing, which builds and repairs homes for those in need.

Bike Adventure leader and Americus Resident Ryan Iafigliola led the cyclists up the FCH driveway Saturday before they hopped off their bikes and were greeted with hugs and congratulations.

“It’s great to be home. It’s great to see so many friends,” he said. The riders were invited Sunday to speak at six local churches. In the afternoon, they toured Koinonia Farm and enjoyed dinner at the home of Linda Fuller, co-founder of the Fuller Center.

On Monday, the cyclists worked with the Americus-Sumter County Fuller Center alongside local volunteers and a Youth Build team to make progress on the Elizabeth Street home. In addition to hanging gutters, they hauled recycled concrete to build rock bed gardens that will be reachable for Harris and Davis who are in wheelchairs.

“The old foundation (from a house previously on the lot) was broken up so now we can recycle it and put it to use again. That’s kind of cool,” Ivan Cunningham, a cyclist from Lawrence, Kan., said. Cunningham is biking the entire journey from Niagara Falls to New Orleans.

He said he is enjoying his time “where it all started.”

“There’s been a good energy everywhere we stop,” he said, “But this is where the ripple started.”

Iafigliola said Americus is a highlight of the trip, now in its third year, because so many supporters join in the fun and because it is a place of history in the poverty housing movement.

“It used to be that Americus was the one place where we had lots of supporters. As the Bike Adventure keeps growing, we’ve had more and more places to stop with more and more people who show up to learn about The Fuller Center and to encourage us,” he said.

This week alone the team stopped every day in a city where there was Fuller Center work happening locally.

Eight of Saturday’s riders started the week out in Spartanburg, S.C. and the day out in Macon. The other half consisted of local riders who met up with the team in Andersonville.

Bobby Jones, a resident of Warner Robins, joined the team for the entire day.

“I really enjoyed it,” he said, “The overall camaraderie, laughter and conversation made me feel like part of the team.”

Cyclists come and go throughout the ride, usually for a week or two at a time. Six are pedalling the entire route. So far the team crossed nine states and stopped to build with Fuller Center covenant partners in four cities.

The director of the Americus FCH, and Director of Covenant Partner Development for FCH Kirk Lyman-Barner also joined the cyclists for the entire day of cycling.

“It was very exciting to catch up with the riders. I’ve been following them from day one as

they act as ambassadors for The Fuller Center,” Lyman-Barner said. “I wish I could travel the entire way with them. They touch on all three areas where I work on: developing church partners, developing covenant partners, and Monday they built with the local covenant partner.”

The Bike Adventure will ride out early Tuesday morning from Williams Road Church with six new Americus residents joining for a day or more.

The Fulller Center is based in Americus but has more than 60 covenant partners in the U.S. and 16 throughout the world.

To learn more about any of this weekend’s events contact bike@fullercenter. org. To follow along with the Bike Trip as it happens with blogs, videos and photos or to donate to their hard work, visiti www.fullercenter. org/bikeadventure.