PAINSTAKING PREP
JOURNAL ENTRY NO. 1
Months upon months of preparation have gone into Ride To Everest, not to mention the hours, days and perhaps years. A dream for 10 years, a “nearly” or “perhaps” for 1 year, a reality NOW!!!!! When you come up with the crazy idea of embarking on such an adventure, there is no way you can comprehend the complexity and sheer amount of painstaking preparation that will be necessary to make it happen...... even before the adventure itself begins!
APRIL 2006 – JUNE 2007
March 2007 – With the website ready for public viewing we started hitting up sponsors and media, finalising our itinerary, putting together a serious gear list, and to our relief, received our Russian invitations...... ALRIGHT - AHHHH!
April 2007 – With the route totally sorted and set, website done, and some sponsors secured, we now needed to finalise everything else...... a massive undertaking for this kind of adventure. After much research and organising care of Cavey, our Russian visas arrived, then quickly our Chinese, Indian and Mongolian visas .........yeah!!!!! Our months of hard work building the website and approaching sponsors finally paid off as the gear needed for the trip came together. Bikes were supplied by GT Bicycles (two GT Avalanche Expert All Mountain Bikes), training, servicing, parts, and equipment from Gap Cycles in Brisbane, clothing, camping equipment and accessories from K2 Basecamp in Brisbane, and some financial backing from family. Dylan continued to finalise bike gear with sponsors and follow up media coverage while Cavey sorted power issues and fabricated a dynamo system for the bikes.
May 2007 – One of the busiest months of our short little lives. We collected all the camping equipment, navigation, and clothing from K2. Secured sponsorship from Incline Sports, Descente and Nuun for riding gear and hydration; sponsorship from Maxxis for rubber, tubes and accessories for our rigs, and Australian Mountain Bike Magazine came on board as a media partner.
June 2007 - To do list still 3 metres long! Final photo shoot with THM – Photographer, put everything together in a dog pile, tested our gear, equipment and rigs, re-wrote the itinerary again, cried over not enough cash, finalised sponsorship from Topeak, Met, Tubus, Ortlieb and Lizard Skins, had to drink ourselves into oblivion and then fall into bed...... exhausted!!!!
June 13th 2007 – To do list now only 2 metres long!! Try to pack all our gear into 2 bike boxes...... IMPOSSIBLE!!!! NO WAY!!!! we should be driving a truck around the world, not mountain bikes!!!! We need to be at Brisbane International Airport by 8:30pm to depart at 12:30am on the 14th June...... AS IF!!!! 9:30pm we make it to the airport...... aaaaaahhhhhh...... time to relax...... NOT!!!!
The months leading up to departure
We started serious talks via email and phone, while Cavey was in London and Dyl in Brisbane in April 2006. Cavey made his return to Oz in Sept 2006, and by January 2007 we had outlined a rough budget, gear list, developed a sketchy idea of our route, started building the website, and had our first photo shoot with Todd Hunter McGaw – Photographer.
On top of spending time organising the trip, we realised we could do with some training in certain areas, and so undertook training sessions for servicing the bikes, using still camera's, and for shooting video. Dyl with so much time on his hands (yeh right!) decides to keep busy by writing a pre trip article for Australian Mountain Bike Magazine. What a way to end the month of May 2007...... we are both flogged by this stage!!!! MAN!!!!