Update...It's Cold and That's No Bueno for a Cyclist

It feels like it has been a year since I last got on the bike. In reality it has only been a couple weeks. Way back then Travis and I decided to do a mini trial tour around OKC. We logged close to 50 miles on an overnight trip that ended with us camping within 30 feet of Lake Hefner, one of the large (by Oklahoma standards) lakes in the OKC area. After setting up our tents off the road a bit in a clearing surrounded by tall grass, we made a simple dinner of beanie weenie and mac and cheese with some applesauce. We had dealt with some pretty major headwinds and some decent hills for Oklahoma so we quickly went to bed.

This was short lived as a group of young people stumbled upon our site and walked right up to our tents with flashlights. We suspect they were just looking for a place to drink but we were uneasy about sleeping nonetheless so we packed up everything, in an inefficient manner (thankfully my Carradice Carradry panniers are way bigger than I need) and moved to another site closer to the water down an abandoned path that had become overgrown. We got a good night of sleep until being woken by a steady soaking rain that got us wet, having made the mistake of not attaching the rain fly because of the forecast that said there was a 20% chance of rain...for future reference, anything over 0% will be viewed as 100% by me. Having to start the day off soaking wet and cold is not the best way to have high spirits and letting your sleeping bag and tent lay out to dry is not going to be as easy on the road when we need to use as much sunlight as we can to log miles.

Being only 2 months from the trip it is hard to focus on much else but with the difficulty of earning the funds required to finance the trip I have enough to keep from getting too far ahead of myself. I'm still in training to be a waiter at a restaurant on the lake so I'm really committing this trip to God, trusting that if we're all meant to go together, the money will come through generous tips and as much hard work as I can come to find. No longer having to worry about gear and spending money on the bike is certainly a relief at this point but the actual trip expenses are considerable.

I look forward to sharing this experience with you in a couple months, but in the mean time, I have a favor to ask. We are attempting to bring in sponsorships for this trip, whether through product sponsorship or financial support, but in the business world there is no such thing as a free lunch. What that means in this case is that in order to attract businesses support we need to find a way to help them get their branding out to a large enough audience to justify it. Honestly, I'm fresh out of ideas in that department so that's where you all come in. If you have any suggestions you could offer we're all ears...or I guess eyes given our relationship to you is strictly textual.