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Dave through the Americas Fallow Dave as he rides his bike from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

Ariba la Luna 4/26/02 Gypsum, CO

Old 04-26-02, 11:58 PM
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Ariba la Luna 4/26/02 Gypsum, CO

I hope you enjoyed the full moon as much as I did. So, no Moab, due to lack of interest from others. Back up plan was Boulder, but it seems like some storms might be coming through. Soooo, I guess I am headed off to Iowa on Sunday.
Today I went riding after Ray came home from work. It was pretty intense. We saw tons of deer as we worked our way uphill and then we had some nice down hill fun (I used Ray's girlfriends full suspension Trek this time and it felt Oh so nice). I ate it hard towards the end. First I checked myself, OK, then I saw the bike flying about 10 feet over my head and land in front of me. I called out to Ray thinking the bike was trashed, cuz I thought for sure the front rim would be folded at least. Turns out there wasn't any damage at all except for a couple raspberries on my low back. After we got home we gorged on pizza and melted in the hot tub and stared at the full moon above. The only drawback of the night was that I lost my sunglasses at the crash site and probably won't be able to look for them before I leave.
On another positive note, I finally heard back from BOB trailers who offered me a nice pro deal for my Yak purchase. I am psyched about this since I wasn't looking forward to spending retail price. So, big thanks to BOB for supporting my adventure.

In the near future, I plan on writing a little something about my experience searching for sponsorship for this trip. It might be helpful to some of you out there who might be thinking about doing the same for your own adventure.

Until next time...Dave
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Old 04-27-02, 12:18 AM
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Hi Dwagenheim!

I have taught a lot of aerobics classes for my opportunity- of course, you've also seen that I'll do the servas thing too. Here's something else- I met an older woman last year in Italy. She was from Sweden and she was biking through Italy. She was sharing a room with me, and when I talked to her and asked her what she was doing with her computer, she told me that she wrote some of the newspapers and magazines before she left and secured some paid articles about her trip. She actually did a bunch of pieces on art and culture in Italy, but she did some pieces about cycling through Italy. She told me if I were smart, I would save all my pictures and write my experiences down and try to sell them. So this year, when I take my trip, I plan to bring a small tape recorder, in addition to a small notebook. I will be taking notes of what I did and the things I observed, and when I'm too tired to write, I can just talk into my tape recorder. When I get home, I'll start calling magazines and newspapers and see about selling stories to them. I'd actually like to do a series on my trip and just write about some aspect of my trip in installments.

If you're interested in doing this, go to about.com and check under freelance writing to see more about "freelance etiquitette". You want to be able to make sure that you get royalties from your article every time they publish it. And you want to be able to get something if they put your article on the internet and it's viewed by lots of people. And you want to see how you can re-sell your article to other magazines or newspapers. Some publishing companies don't want you to do that. And you have to be able to negotiate your rate. I mean, if they offer you a nickel per word when typically, freelance writers get a dollar a word, they are really ripping you off. It would be a good idea to read up on that stuff and figure out what you can do to protect yourself. About.com gave the best information yet.

Hmmmmm..... I know it can get costly, but it can also lead to some money making opportunities. I know another aerobics instructor who decided to go around to these adventure races and interview people, so she travelled around and talked to people. Then she got together with another writer. I'd just gotten back to Italy when she was telling me about this great book she was writing, and she was having a ball. Well, I didn't take her seriously until I saw her book about 3 months ago as the featured book on borders.com! I'm glad I took the time to talk to her- see if you can find someone like that who can guide you in the right direction. It could pay off.

I'm thinking about getting into some television opportunites eventually. I know some local personalities and I'm hoping they'll look at me next year, cause I want to do the whole summer cycling around and get paid for it. This is the last trip I go without some serious funding behind me. Shoot, I ain't goin' down like no punk!


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Old 04-27-02, 12:44 AM
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Sho nuff Koffee.
You are really a wealth of information. And you seem quite the businesswoman as well!
I have thought about writing a book about my upcoming experience. I guess the way I look at it is that I have to take one step at a time. I don't really even know what to expect. My goal is to journal as much of my thoughts (publically-such as this, and privately) as possible, and see how that goes. I've never been much of a writer, but that may change soon enough. I worry about keeping at it, but I don't think I'll be carrying a tape recorder like you. Another cyclist gave me an idea of buying post cards along the way and writing to yourself on the back of those. I like that idea.
For now, I only try to market myself enough to gain some product sponsorship from companies out there in order to cut my costs. I'm not the type to go out there looking for monitary support, its just not my thing. But that may change someday.
I like how you are thinking about trying to build on this experience and use it as a step towards something you could get paid to do in the future. I've thought about that too. I would love to be able to be outdoors doing what I like best and making a living. But what I think to next is, Will I enjoy this as much after its all over? That remains to be seen. So do many other things.
I will try to capture as much of my experience in photos as well as words. Maybe that will be something I can capitalize on in the future.
I am very uncertain about many things, but I feel that I will find my certainty soon enough. Right now I just want to walk that line of doing what makes me feel good and being able to afford it.

Thanks for your input and that info on that freelance site. I'm eager to complete this application for the Servas Org as well. I think that is something that will complement our tours nicely and even provide some additional worthwhile experiences. I look forward to participating.

Dave
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