miles in during this year’s
Cycle Oregon.
(Photo © J. Maus)
Portland residents Ashley Mitchell and Collin Roughton are making last minute preparations for a 5,080 mile, cross-country bike ride to raise money for two local non-profits.
Ashley, 26, and Collin, 25, work together at the Community Cycling Center (Ashley is also a mechanic at Citybikes). They’ve launched a website for their Money for Miles Campaign with hopes of raising $5,080 (buck a mile, get it?) for the Coalition for a Livable Future and Bike Farm.
Ashley says everyone who supports their trip will get a postcard (with an awesome manatee-rainbow design, see below) and will be listed on their website.
The biking duo plans to leave Portland on January 2nd. Their route will follow Adventure Cycling’s Southern Tier from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to San Diego, CA and then will head north along the coast back to Portland. A fundraiser and kick-off party is set for December 29th from 5-9pm at the Lucky Lab Brewing Company (915 SE Hawthorne). Check out their website for more details or follow along via their blog.
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Best of luck to them! I’m envious and I’ll try to donate. I wonder if they’ve estimated how long the trip will take – couldn’t find that info on their site.
Nick – Our goal is to make it back by the last week of March. So about three months. You’ll have to follow the progress on our blog to see if we make it!
I remember those orange shoes during Cycle Oregon…I’ll donate
Collin, we’re totally making all of those miles! It’s going to be awesome!
Jonathan! Thank you so much for posting!
You guys are gonna do great, but I’m sure gonna miss you guys! You’ll be back just in time for Spring Bike Clubs right!
Definitely gonna be an adventure.
Curious about some stuff not clear on linked pages:
Donations/Logistics
Obviously a fundraiser for CLF & the Bike Farm with an explanatory link for each at moneyformilescampaign[dot]info, the figure “over $2,000” is mentioned as a donation target for each of those outfits. That leaves some of that buck-per-mile fundraising goal of $5,080 leftover: Is that just not tied up to one or the other of the organizations yet, or is the balance going to be considered the operating budget for the bike tour?
‘Cause if it’s the latter, I am concerned that y’all are definitely gonna be running a little short over the course of yer trip (assuming transport to FL is already a done deal). Maybe you two have it already financed and budgeted for the journey (like, those ACA maps aren’t exactly free) but whether that’s the case doesn’t appear to be addressed on any of yer pages and it seems a valid area of interest for potential contributors. Not necessarily that you need divulge who is paying for what, so much as just an indication that it’s covered already, which makes more precise exactly where donations are going during the campaign.
Donation Meter?
While the CLF site has a comment box where a connection to yer campaign might be specified by a donor, the Bike Farm page doesn’t seem to have anything like that – nor do either of those donation pages so much as mention yer thing. Although it’s crystal that you are requesting donors go directly to each organization’s donation page to contribute, one wonders how donations will be tracked toward goals on your or their pages.
If some of the funds raised are intended to go toward getting you back to Stumptown, that’s a very specific thing and beside supporting either worthy organization, people may want to pitch in directly toward your expenses to help with success of the overall campaign. There does not appear to be a donation mechanism (button – whatever) present to support the ride logistics, so maybe you have all that covered.
Details, details
At roughly 90 days travel time, you would be lookin’ at about 57 daily miles without rest days or with one rest day in seven – 75 days in the saddle – something like 68 miles per day (in reality, rest days can spontaneously impose themselves, requiring subsequent mileage adjustments to keep to any kinda schedule, so some calendar padding is good planning). That’s pretty ambitious for a first tour of this length, but certainly doable if you can eat and drink enough and watch out for each other.
Gonna share any of yer thoughts about this stuff? Is there a sag-wagon? Sleeping in Hiltons along the way or guerilla camping? Vegan camp food (yeah, good luck with that in Texas) or exclusively small town Ma & Pa diners along the way?
May you end up with hundreds of happy, vicarious ghost riders following along.
Jene-Paul
Jean-Paul, thanks for your questions, here is the scoop:
Donations/Logistics questions- We’re not accepting any donations for ourselves. Because donors can choose between CLF and Bike Farm, we’re not sure what the final numbers will look like. It could be that CLF gets 3000, and Bike Farm gets 2080, or some other number, hence the 2,000+ comment, though I may clarify that on the website.
Regarding ourselves, we’re financing the trip on our own, but have provided a small link on the website- on the main page on the post it note, which links to our joint paypal account should donors want to help us out on the ride, we chose to keep it small so as not to detract
from the fundraiser. Savings and selling everything I own can go a long way toward costs.
Donation Meter questions- Bike Farm is tracking donations on the back end and sending the information to us via email. The link from our website sends a specific query to their volunteer IT guru. If you went to the bike farm page outside of our link, we won’t get the information.
Donations will be tracked on our website starting tomorrow. I was not able to finish the donor page before this story ran.
Details, details questions- We’re estimating the latter, 75 miles a day with one rest day. I have to back before Collin, so it may be that I hop a train upon reaching San Fransisco to get back in time for work. We’ll see how it goes!
We’re guerilla camping most of the time, using ‘warm showers’ and ‘couch surfing’ and friend’s houses along the way. We’ll be cooking most of our own food. We don’t have a sag wagon.
It’s a diy trip that we decided to do at the end of August, so we’re happy to have put so much together in the time we’ve had.
Thank you so much for your questions!
Hello to my weekend son Collin! Momma Kiel here and sooooooooooo very proud of your ambition and service for a good cause! How about stopping by Daytona for some “Collin cookies”!!! Remember those? Or I’ll drive them up to Gainsville if you are near Jeff! Good luck good luck! Can you fit Jeff in your back pack? He want to do this sooo bad!
Hey, Smash.
Thanks for the thorough response. That’s a lotta wilderness turf you’ll be crossing and some big days.
Sometimes, out in the sticks, the roadside is fenced for miles and miles past when yer wiped for the day and you ain’t gonna make it to a planned stop for the night. You gotta know when to fold.
Well, don’t be afraid to go up to a ranch house and knock on the door and ask if you might do some chore in exchange for tossing yer tent out by the road on the edge of their property. Chances are likely they’ll point out a better spot and won’t let you do any work and you might make a new friend (but if they do come up with a chore, it’s almost always interesting).
Oh, yeah (as if you asked for more unsolicited advice!) – if you haven’t already – start using a hydropack and make sure you have a method for securing extra water (straps with buckles on panniers, etc.). Water is life. A few bottles on the frame are so 19th century.
Jealous,
Jene-Paul