I WISH I COULD, I WISH I COULD

DREAMING LIKE A HOKA HEY

The idea that, you have put together a successful marketing program, you have your first sponsor, and

that you need more than living on cloud nine wears off quickly. You ponder thoughts of the perfect tools to complete your journey, what if I had more sponsor dollars, what if I had a sponsor that gave products, hardware, and software start edging themselves into your brain right now.

Stop... You are a one man machine right now. Your CEO, and the third shift of your business venture that you started a couple of weeks ago. You are a charity looking for what ever bird seeds are on the ground, and you have finally committed to your project, because now you can't back down because you have other people watching you. 

Dave has put himself in a place that you might call no man's land. On one hand I have climbed the mountain, and made it to the top. On the other hand you tasted the reap of your rewards, and you want more. Where in comes reality, you just put your budget together for the Hoka Hey Challenge, and your still falling short of your goal.

In this project the scope of traveling for Dave, is now up to 28,000+ miles on his personal motorcycle, due the original 14,000 mile race to Maine then, the ride from Saint Louis, Missouri to San Diego to the starting line. Then from Maine to New York, then from New York back to Saint Louis, Missouri has just set in, so have the costs.

So guys and gals, the cost of gas was around $3000.00. This is for a motorcycle not an SUV. Your have hotels at the start, hotels at the finish. Repairs and tune ups for the bike during the trip, and some food if you plan on eating, along with a beer or ten at the finish line at the end of the race, it just all ads up. I believe Dave said, plan on around 8-10 grand from start to stop just participate, with out raising any charity money.

Did that just put the grind on anyone that might still be brave enough to enter this challenge. Money, sponsors, donations, and what ever the "f..." you can get may not be enough. This is not a poor man's activity and never will be. It's a race of honor to most that enter, but the charity portion is what everyone does it for.

Planning is unbelievable. For any of you that are going to plan the scope of a trip this scale you have to really, start working out. The question I heard Dave asked, is how do you train for something like this? Well, you have to set a diet with healthy food. You have to train yourself to get less sleep at night. Work out as much as you can. If you did none of these, start riding your bike, at least 100-200 mile trips at least a couple of times a week. You need to train in all conditions, particularly in rain, snow, and fog. 

Once your on the highway you have to reach back and say: "I can't speed on the highways," it will be one of the hardest things to learn. You need to learn control, on back roads, gravel, dirt, narrow roads, and again in all condition.

Dave explained to me that on one section of about 400-600 miles, he travelled in part snow, a lot of rain, and nearly killed himself in the mountains in dense fog for over a 24 hour period of riding 3 miles per hour for over a 150 miles.

I said earlier in one of the earlier blogs that this challenge has a time frame, rain or shine. You don't want to make the ultimate sacrifice riding on the highway, but this challenge has taken lives, and not just one. I know that this race started with around 70 riders, and in the first 30 hours almost 20+ were either in the hospital with exposure, or had dropped out because they realized they were not going to make it. This did include riders that raced in previous challenges, and crossed the finish line, and had years of experience in this race.

It just wasn't their time. Looking at where we are at this point. Dave committed to filming his adventure with me. Dave needed to raise money. Dave had to be more than he ever he ever thought he would be in this adventure. Dave never realized up to this point, "what does it take?

What does it take to be a man, a marketing machine, a plain guy on the street, hold two to three jobs and function from day to day with the just the basic motor skills to do his laundry once a week. Wow, the art of juggling comes to mind, along with time management is a must.

Dave in the other hand, still has to work on time management a little. Dave got behind on things so fast, that I can't even start to tell you. You get forgetful, your tired, your pissed off a lot, juggling your bosses and work, and in Dave's case...

"He forgot to eat." Dave started really worrying me, he was loosing weight like crazy before the trip. I had to remind him to eat at least once a day. All in the name of trip all most around the world and back so to speak, and that you might die trying?    "EAT IT!"

Thinking about all this brings to mind several things. Dreaming for one the video choice today is about dreaming about bikes and, my idea of the rider on one of these bikes. Pay attention to the last couple of clips, and you will know what it take be in this challenge...