17 days to padded shorts!!!!

With less than 3 weeks before the start of the 2009 sustainable living bike tour, riders are dusting off their shoes, pulling out their jerseys, and maybe even doing some training rides. We are adapting our curriculum for a new crowd, finding sponsors and donors (a huge THANK YOU to everyone who's already donated), asking loved ones on our route for shelter, getting the food gathered to feed 14 hungry cyclists for 3 meals a day for 3 weeks, booking schools left and right, reserving campsites, and maybe even finding a surfspot or two along our route. We are doing research about ecological issues. We are putting our goals for this ride at the forefront of our mind as we think about what to bring. We are finding the motivation to work out in the midst of a very full work day, if only because we are encouraged by the knowledge of these workouts paying off during those first few long days and mountainous rides through Big Sur. There is still much to be done, but the anticipation is building as the number of days until the start of the bike trip are decreasing.

The schools who leave the island at this point in the season might just likely hear a "see you soon!" and not a "goodbye." We've got 14 schools booked in our itinerary and plans to revamp or even build gardens and compost bins at as many schools as will put our hands to work.

We had a bike trip meeting tonight, to remind us to (again) work out so that we don't just survive the bike trip but we actually enjoy it. We were updated on the itineraries, the schools added, and the understanding of what all we needed to bring with us (as little as possible to save some room in our Support and Gear vehicle, our SAG wagon, the shortbus): biking gear, camping gear, warm clothes and layers for the evenings, and "school"clothes for presentations.

We have been lucky enough to have enough gear, across almost all of these categories, donated over the years.

Our staging area looked strangely like a bike shop! The first job is looking the part, I suppose.

We are eager to ride, both to teach those schools a lesson and those hills one too! 17 days to padded shorts!