Katie Spotz and six other riders from her team took shifts biking from Oceanside, CA, to Maryland.

It took them seven days and 16 hours to bike to reach their destination Sunday, and Spotz did the entire thing with a broken pelvis.

But the Mentor native, when asked how she's feeling, didn't talk about the race or her still-broken bones. She talked about her team.

"The thing I'm most proud of is we started out as 13 strangers and became a family," she said.

Originally, the plan had been for her and her partner, Sam Williams, to bike the entirety of the race themselves. However, that plan had to change when Spotz crashed a week before the race and broke her pelvis.

Spotz said she was shocked when the doctor gave her the bad news. He even had to print a copy of her X-ray to show her.

"I was convinced I pulled a muscle," she said.

Spotz didn't want to give up on the race after months of training and searched for a way to bike on a leg that was broken so badly the doctor told her not to walk on it.

She and her doctor came upon a mutually agreeable solution: use a handcycle, which is powered by her arms and not her legs.

However, Spotz had not trained to use a handcycle. She joked on her blog that "the only arm exercise I’ve done in the last seven months has been passing the plate around at the dinner table."

Suddenly, instead of biking 200 miles a day, she could only bike 20 or 30. That's when her team stepped up.

Anne Miltenberger, Jools Whitehorn, Kevin Malone and Will Saguil, as well as Williams, picked up extra miles to make sure the team reached the finish line.

Spotz took a second scary spill on day four of the race in Colorado. She hit a speed bump and was thrown from her handcycle. However, despite some road rash, she found she was no worse off for the fall.

In fact, the subsequent doctor's trip offered some good news. The doctor told Spotz that she was clear to use her normal bicycle instead of the handbike.

Spotz said using her training bicycle gave her a second wind.

"I felt alive again," she said. "It made me realize how much a bike is an extension of yourself."

Spotz said she felt relief, excitement, joy and even sadness as she and six other team members crossed the finish line – sadness specifically because she knew her journey with her new family had ended.

Spotz and Williams didn't just bike across the country for the physical challenge. Their journey, which was sponsored by Kinetico and Levi's, was intended to raise awareness and money for those who don't have clean drinking water. Specifically, they hope to help provide potable water for drought-stricken northern Kenya.

People can still donate to their cause by visiting www.rideforyourlives.com and clicking on the "Donate Now" button.

Spotz, at the age of 22, became the youngest person to row across the Atlantic Ocean – once again to raise money for Blue Planet America.

When asked what her next challenge would be, Spotz said she wasn't finished with her bike.

"I definitely feel like this is unfinished business," she said. "I'd like to try another similar biking challenge."