And the date is in, June 21st to the 24th is this years BikeBike!! in Vancouver B.C. This is of course not great for my bike tour, I don't think it's physically possible for me to ride the 2190 miles in three weeks. And leaving before June seems cold and wet. I'm left with the option of leaving from alaska after bikebike, (most likely) or not going to bike bike and keeping the date still June 1st. yup, i think i'll leave Alaska July 1st... Hard date, anyone want to come with? Anyone want to ride up to Vancouver from Portland June 15th?

this is all becoming more real, and a bit sad.  I'm not sure how this is all going to work out.

let me vent and be real for a moment.

i'm sitting here in australia.  i'm meeting with people, talking about the future of this company.  i have no idea what the future holds.  I know i can still take two months and ride from alaska, but after that...  i think i'm supposed to go back and work for SCD (Secure cellar door) and part of me wants to.  but part of me is really fucking sad about my bike tour.  it's not going to be like i thought it would be.  But my thoughts were developed three years ago, before i ever met ben, or came to australia.  It's not much wonder that life is changing, but i don't really want it to.

i want to do both.  but i don't feel like it's possible.  Even if i don't have to be in AU all the time, I will have to work and be by a computer.  Can i really bike the pan american highway and maintain an internet job?  I suppose if i can do this it will be inspiring.  if i can make this work...

so how is the plan looking now?

i leave July 1st from Anchorage AL.  I basically take a month of work off because there is little possibility of having internet access while biking through the Yukon.  But hopefully I will still be able to check in at least once a week and answer emails from wineries.  then i will get into more populated areas and I will dedicate two days a week to finding internet and answer emails.  Once I get to Vancouver I will have to stay put for a while and get some needed work done.  Maybe some meetings, you know, that kinda shit.  and then I will bike down to portland, and by this time I will be able to do that in 3-4 days.  and then i'll have to stay there for a bit.  and then I will just bike 3-4 days down to a stable place with internet, work, and then continue on down.  weird.  is that possible?

i kinda think so.  I was working alright while i was traveling the US before, but I was on trains and not in camp sites.  but i could find cheap motels, or just work in the libraries...

gosh, it would be cool if it works.

Well, i guess we'll see.  i'm not sure what the consequence of trying it.  It's not the first time i've tried to have mobile work, not the first time i failed either.  heh.

ok, i just wanted to write.

Flyer! I will probably still change stuff on it

Edmonton bike thief steals dream trip - Edmonton - CBC News

Edmonton bike thief steals dream trip - Edmonton - CBC News

the idea of this happening to me mid trip is one of the scariest thoughts... It's eerily spooky to see the black surly, even tho mine is a cross check, not a long haul...)

if he fund raises, i will definitely throw down...

i've thought about purchasing a crazy hub, (rohloff speedhub) but they cost like a 1000 dollars.  I thought about asking for one as a gear grant, but i just can't imagine having something so expensive on my bike.

I'm pulled between being a total gear geek, and having the cheapest, most replaceable bike.  I've had my touring bike stollen, it sucks, i cried.  Luckily i had not tricked out the components, I bought another surely cross check and once it was assembled out the box, i didn't feel like i was riding a different bike.

Same thoughts float through my mind when it comes to camping gear.  Already my set up has cost me:

200 tent
 80 sleeping pad
120 sleeping bag
 60 stove
 50 mess kit
200 panniers (tho i made them, retail i would have paid)
100 bike tools 
810 (spent over 3 years and 3 major bike tours)

So far i've gotten all my clothing used or repurposed...  but i contemplate wool leggings from icebreaker, oooo, but $85.  If the inevitable happens, and someone steels even one bag, while they might not be able to sell these things, i will be out 100's of dollars.

Also, seeing how i want to believe that everyone should bike tour, but i will not be leading any kind of example if i spend thousands of dollars on my set up.  Again, a gear library, i know it's going to happen.  

sell all my worldly belongings before leaving on epic bike tour?

today i made a list of my belongings that i could possibly sell.

there's my computer, my books, records, cloths, and sewing supplies.

when i think about being away from my things for two years (as i have envisioned this tour to take two years of my life) i think, yeah, why the fuck would i want to keep on these silly things.

also, it brings up a lot fo thoughts about what happens after I get back.  do i just enter into regular momoko life? living in my alberta house, volunteering at bike farm and having a pleasant garden?  or will i continue to travel and check in with collectives i visited while on tour, and see what else i can do to help?  certainly my life will have changed.  planning for what happens after feels odd and pointless, which is weird for me, i've always got my life planned 3 years in advance...

but back to the items to sell, 

clothing, seems like a obvious sale.  the stuff might not even fit me the same way anymore.  styles, if i paid attention to that stuff, would have changed.  but is the $100 that i might get for my whole closet worth the possibility of letting go of something meaningful.  But maybe it's not the $100 i'm looking for, maybe it's the liberation.

when i left for australia, i gave away 50% of my clothing.  for the past 9 months i've easily survived off a suitcase of cloths, and for the past 2 months (while traveling the US) i have had just 3 outfits.  i'm practicing for tour.  it's fun.  i just bought super cool underwear (exofficio) that supposably you don't really have to wash, and when you do, (every few days) it drys in less than an hour.  what if that was just the underwear i own.  i guess the draw back is costume.  I love costume and you can't really do that with 3 outfits.

weather of course also gets in the way.  though i have found that with a good pair of wool tights, i can be warm thro a lot.

man, i'm no writer.  and i do think i ought to be more discerning than what i would normally write on livejournal.

but enough self doubt.  i want a place to write this.  to go on and on about what socks to bring on tour. oh how to live life more simply, to get rid of distraction, and focus on the important.

yet it doesn't stop me from owning oh... 7 black jackets?  yeah, 

maybe i should just sell it all, 

not for the money, if i had to trade money for something i cared about, that would not be worth it.  what i have to do is stop caring about this stuff.

grants... the beginnings

I've found myself at the portland library.  I'm doing grant research for the first time.

But all i want to do is read blogs about bike culture.  I want a lot of things but what i probably should be doing, is looking for grants.  Even though the library is a great resource for grant writing, and it allows you to search through all the grantors in the USA, it's still a mess.

Either my search is to narrow, and I find nothing, or my search is broad and I wonder, should I really ask re-max realty for money?

I worked for a company once that donated to causes...

My company got it's tax deduction from Non-profits who the owners knew personally or had a history with.  The owners used the 10k donation, or what ever it was, that was given yearly to boost their egos and help out their friends.

Why would any of these organizations be any different.

And honestly, why should they give bike farm money.

I think i like kick starter better, i like kiva too.  There is something really wrong with our grant system.  Or at least, it's not for the little guys.

Or, i don't know,

Maybe there's something wrong with bike farm.  Even if I could get a grant, which for some reason I think I can, if it were for something like build bikes, who would manage it?  who would make sure it actually happened, the money went somewhere, people got on bikes?

Frank?  while he runs the rest of the shop?  no, we are just a community bike shop.  It's hard enough just to keep our doors open.  And while, grantors love to see programs and measurable effect, reality is that we do the best good by just being consistently open.  Maybe I should be writing grant to make Bike Farm free (though i have some philosophical questions about the benefit of "free")

What do we really need? volunteers,
We just need the people to see us and care about us.  Maybe we do need advertising...

Maybe we should do a kick start.

Not for the money, but for the publicity...

yes,,,

this is what we need.
I've realized this before, now it becomes apparent, we not only do not need a document library as much as we need volunteers, but we also don't need money, as much as we need volunteers.

Bike Bike San Marcos - and train mumblings

Right, i’m on the train for 60 hours, this is supposed to be where i can at least write.  It’s been two weeks since i was supposed to, supposed to write about the meeting with the bike collective in Adelaide  (AU).  This was my first adventure into meeting a collective which is trying to start out.  I’m not sure what my barrier is at this moment, to writing about all that i have learned.  Ok, let's just break it down, 

• you can’t instruct someone on how to build a bike collective, it has to be the baby of the volunteers for them to be invested.  
• As long as you have volunteers and as long as you have donated bikes, everything else seems to work out.  It may be chaotic, but the doors stay open as long as there are volunteers.
• so what the bicycle collective needs is not necessarily a document library, but instructions on how to get more volunteers and more donations.
• and they need help with advertising, and informing people about the collective.

the wiki works.  I used it on this train ride.  i met a guy from UC Riverside, he lived for years in the Bay and when I said that the bike collective in Portland (bike farm) was just like the bike kitchen (in Sf) he knew just what i was talking about.  I checked on the wiki to see if there was a collective in Riverside and there was!  And so i showed him, and i emailed the Riverside collective and told them, “Do more outreach!  Cause there are people in Riverside who love bikes but they don’t know about you!”

The guy who runs (or answers the email) befriended me on facebook, he was excited that i was outreaching for his collective.  He told me that they have had a hard time keeping it open do to lack of volunteers.

i remember one of the workshops that was most interesting but not on the schedule for bike bike! was “how to avoid burn out”.  Surely the veterans of the bike collectives should have some advice, this might be a good topic to discuss.

There are emails to send, yes, i believe this is why it’s hard to write, because already in this short post i’ve thought of three emails i need to write, one so important that i stopped mid sentence to write it.  and i guess that is a lot of it, but again, this is why i’m on a train for 60 hours.  to get this stuff done.

but the writing, the touchy feely thoughts about how to start a movement, how to save the world, the question i often wonder, if we were to help out collectives with tools and money, would it really be so good  for them, or would they just not be as invested in their collective.

so it’s almost as if bike bike has a responsibility to get the word out about bike collectives.

A resource, business cards.  all collectives should have business cards, 

all collectives should be on google maps and the first hit on google searches 

key words, collective, community, free (if they are) and it would be great if every bike collective had a free open shop day.


I probably shouldn't use should... heh, 
anyhow, rambles...

How do I start a movement?

There are lots of things going on with bike touring.  I’ve started to use “google alerts” http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en&gl=us  I get a message when ever someone talks about (whenever google’s robots find mention of) “bike farm”, “bike seeds”, or bike touring pan american highway

It comes up about once every week.  And I have been introduced to some lovely blogs and interesting ideas.  of course, one of the feelings that accompanies being so well connected (via the internet, not via “connections” ;) is a feeling of dime a dozen.  Once a week there is a new blog about bike touring the pan american highway!

When I do what I do, it can not be because i believe myself to be original.  Adventurous yes, but not charting unknown territory.

Sometimes i psych myself out, and think, “this is too big for you momoko, you weren’t built for this type of thing”  but then i can’t help but see how nearly cliche the act of biking north america to south america, the act of bike touring 1000’s of miles is.

But this doesn’t dissuade me.  I’m not in high school anymore, i don’t have to be original.  it will still be amazing when I do it, and my family and friends will still be in awe and loving support.  great, half these bike tour blogs are only read by this loyal group anyhow.  but how do i start a movement.

I would love for a bike tour of at least a month to be part of every person’s journey into “being”.  wha? Just like college is a right of passage into ... “you went to college land”  I would like to see a bike tour as holding the same prestige.  Maybe that’s not fair, college last 4 years.  a bike tour of a month is not in the same category.  but maybe, 1 quarter of college = one month of bike tour.  yeah,

What if, like the hordes of people who set off to freshman year departures from home, there was a movement of people bike touring.  Many cultures have such “times away”, and for the US, that was often that move to college.  But not every one gets to go.  and not every one learns much more than names of new exotic drugs that are composed of strings of letters...

College just doesn’t cut it.

People should go on a bike tour.  not because they are the first, but because it’s amazing what you’ll learn and how you’ll grow.  Because it ought to be as meaningful on a job resume as a BA in psychology.  and the reality is, i think it does mean that much.

when i’m done with this trip i will write on my resume, “biked for ___ years, from Anchorage AL to ___ ___ in south america, doing ______”
and it will be more impressive when it’s filled out, and it will be more impressive than “BA in psychology from UCSC”, or “1 year experience working at Urban outfitter as a sales rep”  ugh,  when i think of the time wasted.
only issue is...

funding.

I want to start a movement.

Any bike tour a person goes on is worth funding.  Whether they have a blog or a cause.  they will grow as human beings and contribute to the betterment of society.  Woah, that’s kinda a big statement, of course there are exceptions.  But really, not many.

I will set some perimeters...
not all bike tours are equally soul expanding.
too much luxury will lesson the experience.  another way of saying this is, it’s got to be hard for it to make you grow.  (side note, it’s always hard to bike tour, even if it’s just the physical effort)
You must share what you have learned for it to be beneficial to ones community.

on those perimeters, i suggest a scholarship for bike touring.  Sadly, the people who agree with me most will be the people who have been on bike tours.  These people usually don’t have the big bucks.  But, if my theory is true, and the experience of bike touring is as enriching as anything learned through school, i think i will find that my bike touring comrades will be moving and shaking and capable of helping out.  I urge you, if you know what good it is to bike tour, donate a dollar a month, we will start a fund, and it will change the world.

Donating to People on Tour

Two of my friends are getting ready to go on bike tour this summer. they've decided to throw parties or send letters to request funding and support.

I'm all for it. In a way that I've never really thought about before, I realize we should help each other out more on our bold adventures. My first bike tour changed my life, it awakened me to a whole new way of looking at the world. It was far more enriching than even college, (when you look at it as a ratio, "time spent" / "amount learned")

The hardest thing about it was funding it (which is probably true for a lot of people with college too). I was in Europe and the dollar was at it's all time low, $1.52 to the Euro. I budgeted like crazy, and really, slept in some unsafe places on a few occasions. While it's true, that the budget aspect of things taught me nearly as much as the actual riding, I still could have learned a lot without being so uncomfortable and possibly in danger. Also, I had it lucky. Nothing happened to my bike on that trip. If I had had any bike issues, my budget would have been exhausted and it's quite possible I would have had to end my tour early.

Since then, I went on another tour down to SF with the ladies of Spoke N Heart. We encouraged each other to fundraise for the event. I had some thoughts about it but ultimately felt bad about asking my friends and family to fund my "vacation". But really, it was such an enriching experience. And I took the knowledge gained there and brought it back to my community, integrating the lessons into the collective bike space, Bike Farm. My community was richer for me having gone on this ride.

I'm lucky cause circumstances in my life have made it so I am financially stable enough to go on a 3 week bike tour without going into debt. But it's really unfeasible for a lot of people. Yet, if we were all able to go on a tour, I honestly think the world would be a better place.

So, the point...

Let's encourage our friends to take risks. Let's pull our resource together.

Luckily, the internets is making it easier. there's not only warmshowers.org and http://www.couchsurfing.org/index.html , but there are also easy ways to donate cash (which is sadly necessary.)

I've quickly created paypal donate buttons by going to

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donate-intro

I answered some questions about the buttons and the code was generated. I then copy and pasted the code into the "Edit HTML" tab of this blogger post. and bam, i have a donate button. About as hard as uploading a youtube video.

Start donating to a bike tour fund. For the next two months, the money will be split amongst my two friends Jesse Bruce and Adam Lecki.

Or there is the subscription method, which is what I hope people will go for. I've thought about it this way, if I were not on tour, would you take me out for coffee once a month. I would take a lot of my friends out for coffee once a month. And then there's the big donation, $60, a fancy dinner. I'm hopping someone like my Dad would take me out to a fancy dinner once a month if I were not traveling the world on my bike. So, with that same willingness to give if I were physically present, maybe he can give me that while I am on my tour. It will certainly help me out more than a belly full of sushi.

Would you take me out for a ...

Cup of Coffee : $2.00USD - monthly Drink at the Bar : $6.00USD - monthly Lunch : $12.00USD - monthly Fancy Dinner : $60.00USD - monthly

yay, i love blogger cause i can use javascript. good job!!!

much better than tumbler or wordpress.com

start ups are hard

http://blog.jazzychad.net/2011/05/02/startups-are-hard.html

this is true, but i've done it now three times

four maybe...

kinda

CORE (a real estate company i worked for) was already started, but i was there for the big push, from 5 employees to 30

same with black star, dave already had the idea and traction, he just needed the organization.

bike farm, i was pretty much there from the beginning

"Collected", that was my failed attempt, i think i'll lump that in with trying to make my house an art collective.

and here i am again, with secure cellar door.

the difference between my successes and failures is first and foremost, having a partner.

"collected" was the biggest failure, and i really felt like i was doing it on my own. i didn't feel like anybody cared one way or another if i succeeded. my dad basically thought i was wasting my time, and while kurt liked the idea of having friends in the house all the time, he didn't care enough to work on the idea with me, or help me renovate the house. I basically had to pay for work from "friends" and so i was financier and founder. I became physically exhausted, and mentally burnt out. after the first year, i dove into depression which was only lifted by my first bike tour. Life changing,

to say what got me through in one word, inspiration.

ok, there are more words, drive, an overflowing of life and goodness, yes!

i went straight into bike farm, the next start up, and i had lots of partners. That helped with the success, and the other thing was that is was a really good idea and totally needed in the portland bike community. i look at the bike temple and wonder why it's not succeeding, and i think it's mostly because, it's just down the street from us. it wasn't really needed. if they had done it in the south east, it might be a different story.

The other success was having a partner that was better than me in a certain way. Ariel is a social mastermind. As much as i like to believe that i am good at making friends and influencing people, she is better. she could just convince people to help her, and followed through with them to make sure it happened. she was also in the community. another thing that i've seen to lead to the success of a company/organization. Dave of black star bags is also very intrenched in the community. he's respected, and has a name. these where too things i lacked with Collected.

as for secure cellar door,

i sort of have a partner. sometimes i don't feel like ben is my partner, sometimes i feel like i'm trying to make the company work on my own. that's silly tho, i have two partners really,

hmm, having a stake in the company is also new, and important

i think that's what i lacked at black star. that's why i left,

i remember the day i realized i was stressing over the business as if it were my own, and then a friend said, "but momoko, it's not."

the same can be true for Secure Cellar Door. while there is a thought of 5% or 10%, it feels far off, and with strings attached. it's not my baby. ben's not my husband and this is not our baby.

but the idea of 5% helps, and certainly with the biggest success, bike farm, i feel that i have a stake in it. not ownership, which is kinda of amazing.

like, i have as much pride as a owner, but whenever i get to a point where i don't know what direction to go with the org, i just ask all the other owners. and honestly, when we fail at things, i don't feel total personal responsibility. this could be seen as a bad thing, and personal accountability is something we work towards, but at the same time, it's really nice to have a space where i can experiment and try things out and not feel like a failure if it doesn't go the way i thought it would.

lots of work environments could be like this, accepting of failure, but even writing it out seems like something you wouldn't want to encourage in your own business. it seems like unsound business advice, "to be ok with failure."

there's something to this i'm sure,

how can i apply this now to my current project.

bike seeds will not be as accomplished if i have to do it on my own. see, i'm already going down the same path as collected, because this is my idea, the other start ups where not.

Is there a need for my idea.

to spread the ideas of collectivism,

eh? yes, but i'm not the first to try,

so yeah, i need to work on that one...

am i in the community? yes, but, i'm loosing my stance. leaving for Australia has really hurt me here. but, i have another year to make it again.

am i ok with failure? yeah! that's the one i've really got. see i want to go on this ride even if i don't change the world. i mean, i sure hope i do, but, biking the pan america highways going to be awesome even if it's just for the ride...

so, i've got a few things going for me,

i shall meditate more on what makes for a good environment for a start up.

first

i'm getting ready for the biggest ride of my life,

i feel worried starting this blog now, i'm half way tired but unable to sleep.

i'm in a place of transition. the rides not for another year but i'm already closing doors, tying up loose ends, letting go of my day to day.

because i need hard line motivation, i put myself in a situation where i have to leave the US for 6 months. this is my test run. if i can set up my life in such a way that leaving for this long doesn't ruin everything i've worked for, well, then i might make it the two years i'm expecting to ride my bike. from anchorage alaska, to some where south in argentina,

i'm going to do that ride.

and i feel like it is "that ride", like the more i read online blogs, the more i see that i am by no means the first, or even the 100th to do this ride. and probably in the year that i'm getting ready to do this, the number of people who have already will double. but this doesn't make me feel less adventurous, i'm thrilled that bike touring is catching on. it does make me nervous that by the time i am ready to ride my bike, people won't be as eager to hear the story as they are now.

i worry not for my ego, (an easy thing to say) but rather cause i actually want to say something this time.

most of my travel has always been for selfish endeavors. self growth, self healing, self esteem, they've been intense, but always a man verses himself type of story. this time, i want to talk about the people. yeah, i want to learn too. it's kinda selfish, but i want to regurgitate all that knowledge as soon as i can, to every one i encounter. i want to be the poster child of the bike revolution! but not really, i more want to be the person wheat pasting that poster all over the world. maybe i'm searching for the poster child, or the designer that will bring about change.

ok ok, the plan:

i want to visit as many collectives as i can and volunteer there for a few days, learn how they operate. talk to them about what works for them, note any advice they have for starting a collective, and then discuss what i have learned in my experience. my experience is that i helped start a bike collective in portland, OR (where one can learn to fix their own bike bikefarm.org) and then kept it going for three years. i learned so much about organizing, and consensus decision making, and non-hierarchal governance. i learned about budget making, and business dealing, simple economics and tax law. but mostly i learned how to build community, enriching friendships that inspire.

i have this idea to some how connect all these bike collectives. and like the ride itself, i am not the first to try. Bike Bike! is doing a good job so far, yet their directory of bike collectives is five years old. i want to help them update that.

i also have this idea that there are many "bike farm's" out there ready to sprout, hence my bike tour name, bike seeds. i want to spread bike seeds all over the country, showing people just how easy it can be to start a collective. i want to help people find funding thro grants or thro micro financing, or even just thro asking people for donations of tools. i want there to be a bike farm, or bike kitchen, or bike church (all different names of collectives which operate in a very similar way to bike farm) in every city with a biking population. i want to stimulate the biking community is small towns. i even have fantasies about collecting data regarding the bike-ability of these small towns as i pass thro them. my god, i could go on for pages about what all i want to get done.

but i'll spread that out.

i find that once i start talking about this trip, i just can't shut up. but it can't be all talk. i've got a lot of research to do, i've got to come up with some words that are worth hearing.