Kellen Smetana
It’s official.  You can pretty much disregard the last post because I am EXCITED now.  I arrived safely Tuesday night and immediately lugged all my gear over to the hostel to meet up with Ben.  Ben had two cold beers awaiting his Sherpa-looking friend – immediately up to 17 out of 10 on the scale.   What an excellent start to the trip!

Hong Kong is huge: seven million people strewn throughout 200 islands (though there’s really less than ten that anyone cares about).  We’ve decided to spend a few days here to get acclimated, build the bikes, and plan our initial route.  It’s an amazing place with seemingly ubiquitous construction.  We went to the Hong Kong Science Center yesterday, a fascinating institution like any you would find in the US.  What was interesting and rather humorous about it though, was that they had a whole exhibit on workplace safety, complete with interactive video games teaching you the benefits of building structurally sound scaffolding, keeping a clean workplace, and lifting a wheelbarrow properly.  Not exactly something you’d find in the US, but if they ever release it on Xbox, I’m sure it will make a killing.

Wednesday is also a big horse racing day for everyone here and we were obliged to pay a visit to the track to get ourselves in the mix.  The amount of money there is unbelievable.  Happy Valley Race Track has a grandstand that makes the recent Big House addition look like a high school gymnasium.  It is a worldly place as well:  you’ll easily see a couple grungy guys like us who had gotten in for free on coupons rubbing elbows with some of Hong Kong’s illustrious shipping tycoons.  Unfortunately, I lost the only bet I made (HK$10 = $1.28).

As for the trip, we have decided to start biking on April 2, the day after April Fools when people get really serious.  It looks like we may take a ferry to the other side of the Zhujiang Kou bay to start as cycling through the Hong Kong – Shenzhen – Guangzhou industrial complex will be impossible.  Our hostel room is the size of most US bathrooms, so I took the bike up to the roof earlier today to unpack and build.  Unscathed from the journey, I had Gromit running like new in no time.  We must have been quite the sight for the heli-tours whizzing past, as Ben brought his bike up for maintenance as well and we took a few test runs around the roof.

In the supermarket stocking up for the trip I had an absolutely hilarious run-in with American culture dispersion.  I was calculating the economics of buying six beer cans over three bottles and the man next to me appeared to be doing the same.  He made his decision before me and quickly reached down to grab one of the only two 40 oz. bottles in the store.  Holding the Pabst Blue Ribbon 40 oz. bottle like a prize for me to see, he smiled and said “ahhh, American style,” and then walked to the register.  I died laughing.  Kid Rock would be so proud.

Just returned from the Hong Kong Harbor nightly laser show; I’ll start posting some photos soon.  We’ll be doing some hiking around the city tomorrow which should be photographically fruitful as well.  Otherwise, the bikes are ready to go and the countdown is on again.  I’ll try to post once more before departing.

Kellen Smetana
It’s here.  Departure is mere hours away now.  And I feel like I’ve done enough planning to make General Eisenhower proud.  In true form though, I still found a way to save ample major tasks until the very end, subsisting on about 3 hours of sleep each of the past three nights.  It’s strange that I’ve had to admit to people that I’m not really excited yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited – it comes in spurts.  I’ll open an email with a picture of Hong Kong, I’ll catch glimpse through the front window of someone cycling by, or I’ll listen to a friend explain how I should most humorously handle a hypothetical situation while riding.  I just mean I’m not REALLY excited.  This morning I’d put myself at about an 8 of 10, but I know I should be at least a 17.  I think I let those day-to-day tasks swallow me up, and I haven’t allowed myself to sit back and think about the scale of what we’re starting.  So, on the plane, the first thing I’m going to do is take a deep breath, close my eyes, and think about that last pedal stroke to the Atlantic.  If that doesn’t put me at a 17, I’m not sure anything will.  I’ll just have to make sure I don’t wake up like the mother from Home Alone, remembering I left my bike in my parent’s garage…

That, I can assure you, will not be happening, as my bike will be coming on the plane with me.  A seat next to me would have been nice, but alas the cargo hold will have to do.  It’s boxed up like a sardine and plenty padded for the journey.

I carried my full gear onto the scale with me last night and it came in at just under 70 pounds!  I’m sure my knees peered down with a frown at the all that weight.  It was not far off my estimate of 60 pounds and I may still take a few items out.  Final verdict will be somewhere in between the two.  To get myself ready to push all this weight along I’ve been trying to eat as much as I can.  My last meal in the US for six months was a huge steak and potato family dinner last night.  (It’s also worthy to note that my second to last meal was a large sack of Hunter House sliders with fries… highly recommended).

In departing I want to give out a couple Thank Yous.  First to the Deloitte office for the awesome sign and all the inspiring and supportive messages you added.  Second to all my friends who stopped by or gave me farewell phone calls over the last few days.  And finally to everyone who has donated to the World Bicycle Relief.  We already have 13 bikes!  It’s truly amazing that we are able to have such an impact so quickly; I’m looking forward to seeing how many we can get by October!

I’ll certainly miss everyone back home!

Next stop: China.

Kellen Smetana
I have decided to name my bike Gromit, from the fictional duo Wallace & Gromit.  I’m not big on personification and so it probably won’t stick.  But who knows?  The name may creep back up on days where I’ve reached the limit of exhaustion...

Gromit is a Surly Long Haul Trucker.  When purchasing, the person at the shop made sure to note that my bike weighed three times more than the carbon fiber speedster the man next to me was buying.  It’s a tank!  Durable, steel, and built to haul lots of weight over long distances.

I actually hope the bike picks up some of Gromit’s most appealing characteristics.  When I’m getting a bit too inventive and adventurous for my own good, I’m sure he will look up in silent disapproval and lead me to proper resolution.  I’ll be counting on him!

Kellen Smetana
And back again.  Friends will give me flack for writing this, but I need to highlight how critical Deloitte has been for me in this whole endeavor.  Many thanks go out to those who were supportive of the idea and did magical work behind the scenes to approve this extracurricular pursuit.

It shows Deloitte’s incredible commitment to individuals and their support for the many passions we choose to pursue.  I can’t think of many other employers where that is the case.  It breeds happy people; and this happy person says thanks.

Pick me out a sweet desk in the new office; I’ll see you guys soon!

Kellen Smetana
It seems like the organization of this endeavor has paralleled the timeline of human evolution.  The first million years, a tiny bit happened.  The next million years, a tiny bit more happened.  And in the last couple thousand years (or in this case couple thousand hours), everything happened.  Like any good consultant, I put together a workplan for the trip.  I’m crazy but not crazy enough to do something I can’t prepare for, and it is here that living in the age of the internet has proven to be quite a catalyst.  There are pages and pages of information on trip preparation, route ideas, gear lists, and inspiring stories of other people who have worked with the World Bicycle Relief.  I want this site to serve that purpose as well, so I have outlined some of the trip preparation activities in detail below:

Living with a medical student means I sometimes have to catch glimpses of appalling textbook photos and the responsible surgical instruments, though it also allows me certain benefits.  One of those is a personal crash-course in survival first-aid training.  Navneet, my roommate, spent an evening going through the various situations and remedies I may encounter on the road: setting splints, proper wound cleansing, and even suturing techniques.  Better safe than sorry!

It’s a wide world out there, and it seems there are plenty of diseases to fill any void.  Fortunately, we have vaccines for some of these.  CDC.gov has been very helpful in understanding the health risks in various countries.  Below is a list of vaccines I either had or have gotten for this trip:

- MMR             - DPT               - Polio              - Hepatitis A           - Hepatitis B            - Typhoid            - Rabies

I have been around bikes for a while but haven’t always been the most proficient when it comes to their inner workings.  So before the trip I solicited the help of some friends at the Hub of Detroit, a wonderful bike collective I got involved with in Detroit.  In exchange for helping a little around the shop, I have spent time with Darrin Brouhard and company every Sunday to get a healthy course of bicycle maintenance and soak up some knowledge from Darrin’s extensive bicycle touring experience.  Check out the Hub of Detroit and Back Alley Bikes at their website.

One week turnaround time for a Chinese visa – much less painful than I expected!  As for the others, I bite my lip for another time…  Entry dates are variable and we will have to get these en route.  All signs points to quite the quagmire; I’m sure there will be more on this to follow.

Visas Needed                          Countries Avoided Due to Visas                         Countries Avoided Regardless
- China                                      - Turkmenistan                                                     - Iran
- Kazakhstan                             - Russia
- Kyrgyzstan
- Uzbekistan
- Azerbaijan
- Turkey

(Thanks EU!)

Everyone loved spinning the globe as a kid, building the list of places they would one day visit.  It’s no different opening detailed maps for a trip like this.  I have half a dozen large scale maps for plotting the route.  The more detailed, day-to-day maps will have to be purchased abroad.  They will be cheaper, much more readily available, and being in the local language, they will help in deciphering street signs and asking for directions.

It’s been fun piecing together my pack from stuff I owned and needed to get.  Visit the Stats page for a full list.

I’ve been hitting the tanning beds to get a nice base down so I don’t burn at the start of my trip…

Totally kidding on this last point.  I had you going though.

Kellen Smetana
It’s safe to say that pretty much the only movies I watch fall under the action/adventure or comedy genres.  One of the things I’ve noticed recently is – and this is especially true of action movies – there appears to be a general fascination with the beginnings of many of the most well-known sagas.  The new James Bond, X-Men, Batman, and Bourne films all tune in to this thirst for understanding of how the seeds were first planted.  Similarly, I have been asked innumerable times how I thought of the idea for such a trip.  Here is the story of how it came to be.

Like anything, for me it probably has its roots much deeper than I expect.  I grew up under the directive to “go play outside” and spent countless summers hiking and biking through national parks with the family.  As a runner through school, I picked up cycling training for triathlons after almost certainly being drawn to the sport by the somewhat popular Mr. Armstrong.  And I have continued to feed an incessant appetite for adventurous travel by fitting in at least one major trip to faraway lands each year, flanked by a group of friends who’ve made a pact to do the same.

Then three years ago while traveling for work, I happened to catch a couple episodes of Long Way Round, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s documentary about a motorcycle trip around the world.  I was in awe.  I think they were in some muddy, cold corner of Siberia grumbling about washed up bridges and thieving locals.  No doubt there are many who place an entertainment value on this and yet would chuckle at the suggestion of doing anything similar.  But I was hooked.  Right then I promised myself I would one day do that, and I tucked the idea nicely away.

Last year I sat down to do some heavy thinking about what I wanted to accomplish before returning to business school.  Sitting outside a coffee shop, the idea clawed its way back up and I jotted it down.  But of course, why just equal the Brits when I could better them.  Motorcycle, c’mon, how about a bicycle…

Around the same time I saw this ad for the World Bicycle Relief while watching the Tour de France.  Intrigued, I researched the organization and found I was 100% supportive of their message; I reached out to discuss the opportunity of partnering on my journey.  To my delight, WBR loved the plan and had a number of great suggestions to help with the process!

No matter how much I questioned or suppressed this irrational idea, it already had a vise-like grip on my mind and was not about to release.  Spurred on by a group of encouraging friends and family, I set out to assemble the team.  Bill will probably have his own version of the story, but I brought the idea up to him between beers before a Michigan football game in Ann Arbor.  It took another three months of convincing from those humble beginnings; nevertheless, he was in for Europe.  I then reached out to Ben as I knew he would already be cycling in Asia at the time.  One week and seven emails later, and he was in for as far as his schedule would allow.

With the help of some very supportive people at Deloitte, I secured an approval to take the time off work, bought a couple maps and a whole case of midnight oil, and started to quite literally put some wheels in motion…

Kellen Smetana
Welcome to the Revolutions for Relief blog!  This is our approach to keep John Q Public abreast of our journey through the activities and current musings of the R4R crew.

The blog will be a very efficient method for keeping friends and family updated on our whereabouts, and it will help to move my parents an inch or so further back from the edge of their seat, but we’d like to accomplish a little more than that through our persistent prose.  We will certainly share the most exciting and humorous stories from our day-to-day adventures but hope to ameliorate those with plenty of our own opinions and color commentary.  For anyone in Detroit, I hope we can add a little Mickey Redmond flair (for everyone else, think John Madden with less rambling and more creative international puns)…

Follow along as we share the difficulties of adapting to different customs and hygiene schedules, the detriments and delights of spending six hours a day in a bike saddle, and the narratives of our interactions with amazing people who will impact us along the way.  In addition to our on road adventures, we hope to keep you updated on the World Bicycle Relief and the many ways they are improving lives through bicycles.

The posts will be as regular as possible so check back often!  You can also subscribe to an RSS feed to get automatic notifications whenever we post something new.  Friends have prophesized that we are unpredictable and outlandish enough to generate plenty to write home about, but if there’s something in particular you want to hear let us know.  In the end, we hope that our journal, photos, and videos will culminate into an adventurous tale and will provide inspiration for you to help us in our quest to build bicycles for communities in need through the World Bicycle Relief.


N.B.  – As Ben has already been cycling for a year and manages his own exciting journal here, the blog will mostly feature entries by me until Bill joins in Europe.  That said, Ben has had some wild experiences so far, so don’t be surprised to find him contributing his perspectives pretty regularly in this venue as well!

Kellen Smetana
3, 2, 1… Liftoff!  The Revolutions for Relief site is up and running.  There are still many kinks to be smoothed out and content to add, but now you can follow along as we finish preparations for the grand cycling journey.

Explore the site to learn more about our project; we look forward to making this the central hub for all things related to the endeavor.  Feel free to post comments or contact us and make sure to tell your friends about the site.

Enjoy!

(For the record, I did countdown before clicking publish…)