Falling Whistles Bike Tour Update

Dear family,
We are officially around 65 hours from launch! It’s a weird feeling knowing that in just three days Ben, Tony and I will be living on bicycles. I’m more than ready to go. Ben and Tony have had quite a bit of work to get done before leaving (Ben is a photographer and Tony is a graphic designer), but there have been those moments where they stop and say, “holy crap, we’re going to be riding our bikes across the country in a few days.” For me that thought has been occurring every second of every day this week (mainly because I have much less to do). All this to say, we’re excited. And we can’t be more thankful for all your support. I can no longer count the number of times we’ve been offered prayer for our journey. And I’ve been learning that the power of prayer is very strong and essential for this trip. I took a couple weeks earlier this month to drive my car and a lot of my possessions out to San Diego. It sort of felt like I was cheating because there’s been this huge goal of making it across the US on a bicycle and then there I was driving it first, and then flying back so I can ride it (although I drove a different route if that helps). During those two weeks of visiting friends and driving around I had a lot of time to think. And when I have a lot of time to think, I think A LOT. So there were a few days where I started thinking more and more about the summer heat we’ll be riding through, the lack of civilization for days we’ll be subject to in West Texas and the monsoons of Arizona. It was then that this started to get a little scary. That stage only lasted a few days, but it made me very anxious. I’m the type of person who is worse off with all this time thinking about the potential things that can go wrong with a trip like this than with being on the trip and troubleshooting the things that go wrong. I’d much rather be working through the problems than waiting for them. So while having nothing to do this last week that I’ve been back in St. Augustine has driven me a little crazy, I know I should appreciate all the rest I’m getting.

Materially I think we are just as ready to go. Tony has been getting all our camping gear together, and we are now set with a sweet 4 person tent and some good cooking supplies. Our bikes are pretty much all complete with the gear we need. We even have some nice spandex to wear now. Ben has been working on inventing a new type of cycling shoe: basically he cut two Vans Classics in half, and is going to secure the front halves of the shoes onto his peddles. The idea is to slip his bare feet into the shoe halves for riding, and then slip on his Toms for walking around. This is definitely more creative than my invention (I drilled a hole in one of my water bottle tops, stuck a Crazy Straw through and can now sip my water without having to take the bottle out of the holder on my handlebar). I hope it works out for him. Tony also created his own rack trunk. It’s all wood with a top to put other supplies on and hooks on the sides so he can bungee things on top. Pretty legit.

As far as events go, Tony has been rocking the planning of events for Falling Whistles along the first third of our route. I’m really excited for some of the connections he’s been making. As for Ben and I, things have still looked a little difficult in the smaller towns through Texas and Arizona. But our bigger cities are going to rock (we have a big benefit event in Austin and a benefit show in Phoenix, as well as some good speak-easies). So I feel pretty confident about getting into the groove of raising awareness for what’s going on in the DRC. We’re also working on some good tangible ways we can get people involved while we’re there (whether that’s through letter writing or encouraging people to spread awareness in their communities). I’m really interested in a campaign put on by The Enough Project which Falling Whistles has been supporting. They are raising awareness about the use of “conflict minerals” mined from the DRC and used in our electronics and working to get the big electronics companies to stop buying metals from the Congo. So while we are still a little curious about how our events will work, I’m excited about the things we can get people involved in advocating for.

These are some of the things we’ve been thinking/working on this last week in St. Augustine. Our next update will most likely come from the road, but I would like to encourage you all to check our twitter daily once we leave as I will be posting videos and photos from my phone (you don’t need to be signed up on twitter to just check our page for updates): www.twitter.com/fwbiketour. I want to thank you all again for your support and prayers, and we are always welcoming more money and supplies (see a couple posts down to send care packages). We also will love hearing from you as we ride, so please feel free to send us messages through email, facebook, phone, anything.

In joy and excitement,

Seth

The Falling Whistles Bike Tour Support group on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502795057&ref=name#/event.php?eid=75824864043

The Falling Whistles Bike Tour Blog http://www.FallingWhistlesBikeTour.com/