Packing for any three month trip can be a daunting task, be it backpacking, RV’ing, or cycling.  After speaking with friends who have done a lot of touring I have a pretty good idea of what to bring and what I can do without.  I know that eventually I’ll be in the mountains of Macedonia and slam my head against a wall for forgetting something important, but it’s best not to worry about things like that and just prepare as best you can.

Make lists!  I’ve had a running list of websites, gear, blogs, and reviews on almost everything I’m bringing with me.  The outdoor store REI has been a great resource because their online store has reviews of almost everything they sell, and they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee (I’ve already exchanged my sleeping bag, cycling gloves, and bike lights for better ones). 

You will discover that your list will grow quickly as your departure date nears.  I’ve accepted this fact and have just decided that it’ll be better to take too much stuff to Istanbul (my arrival city) and will throw away what I deem unnecessary.

Here is my gear list:

Surly Long Haul Trucker (Bicycle)

Tubus Rear Rack

Ortlieb Rear Packer Classic Panniers

Ortlieb Rack Pack (Medium)

Ortlieb Handlebar Bag Plus

REI Half-dome Plus tent with footprint

EZ Lite Sol sleeping pad

Sleeping bag (40 degrees)

Silk sleeping liner

Alien III multi-tool

Planet Bike pump

Sunglasses (clear and shaded)

Bike lights

Headlamp

Gloves (full-fingered and no fingers)

Korean bandanna

Pearl Izumi all-road bike shoes

SPD pedals

2 pairs bike shorts

REI synthetic boxers

2 jerseys

Polo shirt

Smart-wool socks

Pearl Izumi rain jacket

REI light water-proof pants

Flat tire repair kit

2 spare tires

Continental “Travel Contact” touring tires

A dozen zip-ties

Rubber bands

2 thumb drives (in case camera memory fills up)

iPad with case, cable, universal adapter

Ukulele

Frisbee

A few notes about what I’m bringing:

Panniers

There is a debate within the touring community about whether to bring waterproof bike bags (like the Ortlieb bags I am bringing) or to use lighter, non-waterproof bike bags and keep everything in plastic inside the bags.  The argument against the hardier Ortlieb bags is that if you crash or an animal chews it’s way into your bag, you’ve lost the waterproofing but are still carrying a heavy bike bag.  There are also complaints of a mildewy smell to bike clothing that is kept in the Ortlieb bags.  Obviously a wet pair of bike shorts isn’t going to dry inside of a waterproof bag.

I decided on the Ortlieb bags because they have an incredible reputation in the touring world, and because I am bringing an iPad on this trip.  I will possibly switch over to non-waterproof bags on a future tour, but for now I love my Ortlieb’s.

Less Is More

I have a total of 150 liters of space in all my bike bags.  I decided against putting a rack and bags on my front tire because I felt that if I had the space, I would fill it with useless items.  I had several people tell me that you want your bike as “balanced” as possible, but after several fully-loaded training rides I think this is a bunch of baloney.  I’ve ridden up 1,800ft climbs and cruised back down them at top speeds and felt perfectly comfortable with all my gear on the back.  You will want to try and equalize the weight in each rear pannier as best as possible, but front panniers aren’t required for a trip like mine.

Things That Might Seem Unnecessary

So I am bringing an iPad, ukulele, frisbee, and camp chair.  On the surface these things are unnecessary, but will add so much to the trip.

Sitting on the ground without back support is annoying.  As I expect us to make camp everyday with at least 2-3 hours of daylight left, having a chair to relax, eat dinner, and play ukulele in will be indispensable for three months.  The iPad will allow us to write blogs and emails at night, then send them during the day when we find Wifi.  Since we are doing this trip for charity it is important to stay connected and raise donations.  I can also save every map we will need for the trip on the iPad.  The ukulele will be my attempt to start off a music career, and I’ve never travelled without my frisbee.

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Suzie: At the risk of sounding overly negative, this was possibly the worst travel experience of my life.

Ski: Our day started choppy (due to a long goodbye celebration the night before), increasingly became nightmarish, and ended in tears. We had 3 things to do before our flight: remove the peddles from our bikes, transfer the last of our Korean money home, and get onto our plane bound for LAX.

Suzie: That didn’t seem like too much to do at the time. And really we were so prepared that we had time to kill. We went to take off our peddles and mine wouldn’t budge. I mean, this thing was must have been assembled by a roid-raging super mechanic. Three trips to the hardware store and three wrenches later it still wasn’t moving. A ten minute activity suddenly had eaten up hours of our time and that’s when I think we started to panic. That’s what started it all. That damn peddle.

Ski: We were able to hop on a subway, walk to a nearby bike shop, and get the peddle free relatively easy. Still, time was a wasting. Suzie and I still had to transfer money home, so we hit our respective banks for what should have again been a 10 minute trip. Suzie called me (she was starting to lose it) after realizing she still needed to get paid from her school. The clouds were starting to blacken over our Friday, and that’s when I realized it was going to be a rough day for sure.

Suzie: After that we turned off our phones–I don’t even want to get into that part—and then we split up to pick up all our luggage from different friends houses and completely lost each other. I was carrying everything but our bikes and Ski was nowhere to be found but to Ski I was nowhere to be found and then we found eachother…but we were yelling and screaming and trying to get on the bus and we hadn’t eaten anything. It was just very chaotic. But then we were on the bus and we thought, alright, it was just a little peddle. Everything will be fine now. It’s over.

Ski: A short and smooth bus ride with relatively no traffic had us at Incheon International airport in a little over an hour and we made the way to our gate in a hurry. I was starving and looking forward to one last Korean meal before leaving.

Suzie: So we’re outside of the AirChina check in counter, there are zero lines and we start putting our bikes in the CTC bags and wrapping them up. Everything’s kosher. The handlebars are turned, the pedals are off, just like it says on their webpage to do. Then this dude comes up and starts questioning us…we show him the papers…we think everything will be fine.

Ski: So Mr. “I’m All Business” starts telling us there isn’t a chance in hell we are getting on the plane with our bikes. I calmly tell him it’s all good in the hood, but he is having none of it. Rather than give Mr. Business any credence, I just keep on packing my bike into the bag and watch him walk to the front counter. He brings back a “trainee” dude that translates things for us into English so we know what’s going on.

Suzie: We show the trainee the policy and all our papers again while explaining that we have done everything in accordance with Air China’s baggage policy. Mr. Business starts laughing at us and they keep bringing more people over to tell us we can’t take them with us since they are not boxed and totally disassembled.

Ski: After an hour of this, they call the front office and realize… WE WERE RIGHT!! It is FINE to bring on bikes in bags… they don’t need to be boxed. By this time it was 90 minutes till our flight left, but everything seemed to be fine. AND THEN… they start to tell us that our bikes don’t meet the measurement standards. I tell them that I can remove the wheels and make the bags smaller, but Mr. Business keeps laughing and saying it will still be too big. Now, seriously, what is the difference between the bag and the box then! Does a bike box make a bike magically smaller? I honestly think these people just dead up had it out for us and were never going to budge.

Suzie: So Ski starts to frantically remove the wheels to make the bikes more compact, even though we were still in the measurement limits. The trainee tells us to then go to the packing area for oversized luggage to properly pack the bikes. This desk was 5 gates away and a real pain to get to when no one was helping us move our luggage and bikes (which could not roll since the detailer was taped). When we arrived sweating at the counter, the packaging guy put his hand on our handlebars, looked over the bike, laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and left us.

Ski: By this time, the trainee came to us and told us to just wait. I thought there may be hope. Maybe, just maybe, these soulless and uncompassionate employees may be giving us a break. We waited 20 more minutes there. Why?

Suzie: I have no clue why we were waiting. There was now only 40 minutes till our flight was scheduled to depart. Finally, the trainee got a call and told Ski that we could not pack our bikes at the counter. Well… duh… we knew that already. More time wasted and we had to lug all of our things back to the AirChina counter.

Ski: I was keeping my cool pretty well… but this was bullshit. They had us running around the airport for nothing at all but wasting valuable time I could have been using in sizing down our bikes. Back at the counter, they told us it was time to make a decision, forego our ticket and stay in Korea, or leave our bikes behind.

Suzie: This is about the time I started hysterically crying.

Ski: I was shocked at the lack of empathy and inability to even negotiate a solution with us. Mr. Business came up and even said “well, if you took the wheels off and sized them down… it might have worked.” I HAD ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO DO THIS PRIOR TO THEIR PRODDING THAT THERE WAS NO SOLUTION.

Suzie: Ski just started taking all the parts off the bike…like the brakes and the water bottles so we could at least salvage something. I was worthless because I was crying and so upset and just seeing our bikes laying on floor, that we were abandoning them…that just sucked. I don’t know how else to say it. And what was worse was the two girls behind the counter who were just sort of laughing at the whole thing. Why would they be laughing? It was so wrong but Ski was like the man in action, just doing what needed to be done and I just sat there like a big hysterical baby.

Ski: What choice did we have? I begged, pleaded and asked as nice as humanly possible (I rarely get outwardly angry) to help us get our bikes where they needed to go. There was no negotiation, no effort, no help in sight. 20 minutes until our plane was set to leave; we had to go. As we left, the trainee told us that we could enter them into oversized baggage… for $400 each. The bikes only cost us $500!! Furthermore, where was this “secret” oversized baggage option hours earlier? Obviously, something could have been done to get our bikes on the plane.. they just did not want to give it to us.

Suzie: I just don’t understand how a person can’t have sympathy for another person. I mean, they saw that we had done the research for shipping bikes, obviously put in a lot of time to keep our bikes and to do what we could to follow their rules and still in the end, or rather, all through the process were being very uncaring. I mean, I’m losing my mind, Ski’s trying to save the day and they’re just shrugging their shoulders and giving us the options of either 1: giving up our plane tickets, which obviously can’t happen or 2: giving up our bikes, aka our livelihood for the next three months. Oh yeah, or pay an astronomical amount of money. I just do not see how they thought any of these options were supposed to help us in any sort of way.

Ski: The moral of the story is… don’t bring your bikes on Air China… or, learn how to make your bike into the size of a freeking clown car. I can’t believe that I had to look back at our bikes with no clue how the rest of our trip was going to work out. It’s kind of hard to do a cycle tour without a bicycle. Obviously, we will find a way to work it out and buy better bikes than we even had before… still it should never have even come to this point.

Suzie: Never! Oh, yeah… and now our bikes are resting in peace at the lost and found in Incheon Airport. Maybe they’ll still be there when or if we come back in six months…?

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I planned a route through the mountains of Gangchon last year when Suzie and I still had our biking legs and old man Winter still hadn’t torn away all the muscle and endurance we worked so hard to build throughout the summer of 2011. The route had two impressive climbs at 910m and 690m over about 120km, but we were unable to finish it the first time we tried due to a torrential downpour and freezing temperatures that left me building a shelter out of my rain jacket while I waited at the top of climb number one. This time, we were determined to conquer it.

Since it was our last weekend, we dragged a group of ten other friends with us to Ganchon so that we could celebrate after completing our course. The trip out only took an hour from our apartment, mainly due to a soju-infused, rage infested bus driver who took hairpin turns at 60mph through the windy mountain road towards Chuncheon. Luckily, we survived the roller coaster and found the way to our impressive (and cheap) pension in Gangchon.

Early Saturday morning, we were off to see if our legs could cash in the checks our mouths had been cashing over the past few weeks: that we could indeed cycle for 5,000kms through Balkan territory. Despite almost loosing our fingers to the frigid morning wind that pummeled us from the start, and having to fix a brake problem on Suzie’s bike, we hit the ground running and peddled strongly through the morning hours. Then… we hit Hwaak Mountain.

Hwaak Mountain is an unrelenting demon that shoots up out of the Korean countryside and casts its shadow over the world below. I knew what I was in for since i had conquered Hwaasang once before, but I was in much better shape last time. Together though, Suzie and I climbed with the sun on our backs up the 13% gradients and switchbacks that took us to the tunnel waiting for us at the top. I’ve got to admit, it was a struggle that had me questioning my cycling abilities a few times as we peddled on; yet, I knew just like Sheryl Crowe has told me… the first hill is the steepest (wow… that pun was horrific!).

At the top of Hwaak, we were greeted by a group of Korean men who had been hiking in the area. They warmly invited us to join in their meal of Sam Gyupsol (barbecued pork), which we were all too eager to accept after the long climb up. Sitting down with them, I realized this is what cycling is all about: not rushing through to finish the route at all costs, but to take the time to enjoy the randomness that so often presents itself while riding along in unknown lands. Using the best Korean we could, we ate, drank, and talked with the group for about an hour before setting off. Not only did they provide us with incredible HOT food (we never expected to eat anything warm all day) and good company, but they also gave us each a pair of gloves and a bottle of natural spring water to help us finish off our route (which they said we were crazy for trying to finish off).

No more than an hour passed us by and then we were peddling back uphill again. This time, things were much worse as Suzie and I were all but spent from Hwaak. Shoveling cheese pretzels and brownies into my rumbling stomach, I found the mental and physical strength needed to power up the 690m climb that seemed to go on forever. There was only a slight casualty the whole way up when Suzie fell over on a patch of road that had washed away. Watching her fall, I was convinced she had just said… “F-it… I’m keeling over and punching out” from her fatigue, yet I quickly discovered her back tire slipped on the muddy ground causing her bike to topple. Nothing a brief bought of laughter couldn’t fix for us though.

Finishing our route, we descended for a solid hour before reaching the city of Gapyeong. It was a beautiful downhill ride through a picturesque (though I took none) valley next to a slow moving river. Tired and craving food, Suzie and I couldn’t help talk about how incredibly hard it would be to do the hill in reverse… thank God we didn’t need to!

Once safely back in our pension, our friends laughed at how shattered we looked as I crumbled to the floor under my legs of jelly. Recovering was made easy by a tasty Dalk Galbi feast, some drinking games at the pension, and a night hanging out at the small carnival in town.

Despite the difficulty of our training ride, I must say that travelling to Gangchon was the best decision Suzie and I could of made. We figured out that we do need to build ourselves up a bit more before setting off from Istanbul… yet not too much more as I think we are mentally set to take on anything (this being said after having a shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in… miles away from our “wet-nap clean ups” and nothing but a thin layer between us and the hard Earth). Further, it was a great way to say goodbye to Korea and our friends in a neat little town that felt much further away from the metropolitan jungle of Seoul than only 1 hour.

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We started out by building a small, yet visible display on the Traveler’s stage complete with our bikes and some information about Manna Mission and our proposed route of travel through the Balkans. As people began to pour in, we signed contenders up to the “Balkan LNKC Shuffleboard Tournament” to see who would be crowned king of the table by the nights end. Suzie did most of the legwork walking around and telling people about Manna Mission and Love North Korean Children. Collecting donations and informing the locals about our project took some courage for Suzie to accomplish, but she did great and really started getting the hang of it throughout the night. It’s not easy asking people for money, but when it’s going to a good cause… people do tend to get excited and involved.

We sold raffle tickets for 3,000 won a ticket to everyone who gave a donation to Manna Mission. In the hopes that they might walk home with a brand new bottle of Jameson, people readily tossed their money into our donation jar as we added them to the list. By the nights end, we had a 50 names on our list from people who made charitable donations to Manna Mission! Around midnight, our MC Dan Wiberg got on stage with Traveler’s owner Jason Cresswell to announce to winner of the random drawing. Our friend Jen Pace happily ran on stage after winning the raffle to accept her new bottle of Jameson. While admitting she doesn’t even particularly like whiskey, she informed us it would make a nice present for her boyfriend.

Throughout the night, it was hard to believe how many people could possibly even fit inside Traveler’s! I don’t remember it being that busy in a few months so… at least we picked a good night to have a fundraiser. I frequently saw Jason scurrying around in the back trying to keep up with orders and at one point, they even ran out of clean glasses and had to switch to plastic! Not a bad crowd at all, hopefully our event contributed to some of Traveler’s business.

The shuffleboard tournament was a major draw for many people at Travelers. Teams and individuals boastfully walked up to me to enter their names onto the registration sheet, each claiming that the Jameson bottle was their to be had as a reward. By 10pm, we had 15 teams ready to play and set up on a bracket that we posted to Traveler’s projector screen. It only took about 1 game for me to realize that “damn… shuffleboard is a slooooow going game!” I guess in the few nights I’ve played it, I was so into what I was doing that I never looked at a clock… either that or I had a few cocktails in me and didn’t care. The first round was almost painfully too slow and lasted almost 2 full hours! Still, the contenders appeared happy despite the drawn out nature of the event and spirits were high for the victors as they advanced on to the quarterfinals. Some close games spelled defeat for teams during this round and unfortunately, I had to place a time limit on the games from here on out, but we had our Final Four by midnight. In the championship game, Caley and D battled Jeff and Jeremy for bragging rights and the coveted Jameson prize. Jeff and Jeremy pulled it off in a great match-up and shared their winnings with anyone still left at Traveler’s at about 2am. Congrats guys!

This was my first fundraiser ever. I didn’t really know what I was getting into or hold any expectations for what I might get out of it. There were a few times during the night where I was a bit overwhelmed with donations, organizing the tournament, finding supplies, and keeping things moving; but they take a backseat to my feelings of accomplishment when I look back at what we did that night. We ended up raising over $600 in donations to Manna Mission while talking about our tour through the Balkans this summer. Hopefully, this will branch out into more support as people tell their family and friends about what our team is doing.

The fact that all my good friends and complete strangers form the area were willing to stand up and support our project and the charity we are doing it for made me take a second look at how amazing these people in Korea really are. For those that have taken the time to read this post, from the bottom of my heart thank you all for your help, support, and spirits! To see our growing list of backers visit our Supporters Page and be sure to check out our Gallery to see more photos from the fundraiser, complements of Caley!

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In preparation for our 5,000 kilometer ride, it was suggested that Suzie and I take an “Emergency First Response” course while in Korea. Granted that we doubt and hope our training will be needed while on our cycle tour, we felt that it was better to be safe than sorry. After all, having never taken on a challenge of this magnitude, and since we really are relatively new to cycling; you never know what kind of situations we might be faced with. Barring any difficulties being attacked by a pack of wolves with a taste for man-flesh, I feel confident that our class adequately prepared us to care for each other in an emergency.

We signed up for the EFR course a few months in advanced through “Deep Blue Quest.” Deep Blue Quest is a PADI 5-Star Dive Center located just north of Seoul. From Bundang in the early hours of Saturday morning, it only took us about an hour to get there by car.  We took the course alongside our friends Jared, Katie E., and our teammate Katie T. They have been our bike gurus for the past year, so it seemed fitting to continue our training with them as we prepared for our own adventured. Jared and Katie E. are setting out on a Turkey tour in April and we expect to spend some time with them in Istanbul before setting out on our trip.

Our instructor’s name was Russell Krogh and he was an amazing guy. A lot of our class was spent asking Russell questions about what to do in case we were put in certain situations (and in some cases the scenarios we presented him with were a bit over the top), hearing some of his own personal stories, and just chatting it up with each other. He later commented that we were one of the most engaged classes that he has had in a while (still waiting on that Gold Star Russell!). The rest of the class was spent watching a video presentation and learning about the various levels of primary and secondary care. Finally, we had our “hands on training” where Russell taught us how to give CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, use a defibrillator, stop bleeding, apply splints, and give a full body inspection (too many jokes could be inserted here so… just use your own).

To complete our 7 hour class, we were given our final exam. To tell you the truth… it was not an easy thing to finish at all. What can you expect though when you are looking at a test that was worded more like something Yoda would have written than any normal human being (and there goes my gold star… sorry Russell… I know it wasn’t your fault!). If CPR you must administer… breath how many times for what length into the mouth of the patient (answer must be written out and given in a combination of Welsh and Finish alternating each digit). Okay, so it wasn’t that bad… after all, we did all pass. The real trouble was writing down Jared’s 57 character address in 20 characters worth of space on the sheet that would be sent to Australia to get our licenses sent to us. That took a while… way too long actually, but we eventually figured it out, sent our sheets in and said goodbye to Russell.

EFR training eased my mind a great deal regarding safety on our trip. While I realize I am in no way qualified to do open heart surgery yet (I believe Russell covers that in part two), I now have the skills and know how to help out my team in case something unfortunate happens on our trip. I find it amazing that these basic skills are not required in our school system back home and I would highly recommend everyone look into taking an EFR class and get certified. You never know when having these emergency skills may give a person the few extra seconds they need to survive while waiting for help.

Get Certified

To get in touch with Deep Blue Quest in or around Seoul, Korea, you can contact Russell Krogh at russellkrogh@deepbluequest.com. You can also visit their website at DeepBlueQuest.com or contact me for more information. If you are not in Seoul, there are a plethora of diving schools and medical clinics that you can use to get certified in EFR.

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After chowing down on a delicious meal of Jjim Dalk (basically a chicken, potato, and carrot stew mixed with rice noodles, peppers and this particular time there were peanuts as well) we brought out our gear list for Jared and Katie to critique. Jared cycled from Korea to London back in 2009 and part of his trip actually followed a section of our proposed route through Eastern Europe. With his experience from this trip, as well as his continued love for cycle touring, he has been somewhat of a Guru for Suzie and I since March of 2011. Guiding us through the countryside of Korea along with Katie T. and Katie E., they have been a major source of inspiration for the trip; so there’s our reason for visiting the home of our own personal cycling Yoda. Furthermore, Jared and Katie are strapping up and set to go on a 3-week long tour of Turkey in April; a trip I intend to follow intently.

All and all, I think we did a good job of covering all the essentials for a 3 month cycle tour. Jared made a few adjustments and suggestions, but the research our team has done over the past couple of months has really paid off and I feel comfortable that we will be adequately packed for our first real cycle tour.

Of the things we were missing, Jared suggested we bring a Therm-A-Rest repair kit for mending tents and ground mats, a spoke tool (more on that later), an all purpose multi-tool with a chain tool attached, extra spokes, and a few other odds and ends we hadn’t come to marking down on our list yet. The most important of Katie and Jared’s suggestions was to pack for the cold. It never really occurred to me that I would be cold on the coming trip. I mean…it’s summer damnit! Why on Earth would I need to pack as though I were trekking the Himalayas?

The answer is quite simple: we will be in the mountains. At 3,000 meters above sea level, the temperature drops no matter what the season might be. Just cause we may be within striking distance of some of the worlds most incredible beaches doesn’t mean that we are shielded from low temperatures. I guess that fact never hit me until last night and ever since I have conceded to packing a few extra layers in case the nights in Montenegro get a bit too cold.

Following our discussion on gear and being convinced to purchase a pair of Brook’s Saddles to cushion our tooshies on the trip, we moved onto our lesson. Using an extra link from Katie’s newly tuned bike, Jared showed us how to use a chain tool properly in order to remove a broken set and fix a chain. When I say properly, to be fair, he did obliterate one link in the process of figuring out the correct position the link went into the tool… but in the end it worked out just fine. He then gave me a chance to try for myself. I must say, using a chain tool to pop out a link is a pain in the a**!! I put all my muscle behind the Allen wrench trying to screw past the link, but it just wouldn’t budge! After struggling with it for about 3 minutes, I finally got it moving and placed in a position where I could remove the link, but I can’t imagine doing that while it was still attached to the bike! I guess if need be, we’ll have to figure out a way to do it as we go.

After Suzie and Katie finished their practice rounds on the small chain link, it was time for some real world practice fixing the chain while attached to the bike. Katie struggled for a while removing her links but eventually completed the task. From here, we learned how to install a “quick release” link onto a chain. The benefit of this is that if you need to take the chain off your bike to clean or repair while on the road, a quick release link allows you to do this without any effort at all. Basically, it is a small gold piece that acts as a link in the chain yet if you want to remove it, you just pinch the link in front of it backwards and it simply snaps out. Even before beginning the trip I can confidently recommend all cyclists install this before setting out as it is bound to save loads of time struggling to remove individual links with a tool compared to a simple snap and release procedure.

With Katie’s quick release installed, we moved to spoke repair. Now, I went into this knowing nothing about wheels… I mean nothing. Well, I know their round, they have spokes through them that are particularly fun if you put baseball cards in them, and I guess they need air filled tires to wrap around them in order to function… but that’s about it. In 40 minutes, I learned a great deal more. I found out that their are actually two sizes of spokes in your wheel. They need to be changed accordingly if a spoke breaks. Fixing a front tire with broken spokes isn’t so hard, while I would rather eat a serving bowl full of brussel sprouts rather than fix a rear wheel. On an unrelated note… I’m deathly allergic to brussel sprouts.

Fixing a rear wheel spoke entails removing the back wheel, which is a real pain. You need to get it off the chain and away from the derailed, and then use a special tool to unscrew the casing that the chain runs through. Using the tool takes a lot of force and Jared assured that this process is tough work. After replacing the old spokes with new ones in the correct order (I am assuming I will figure this out only if necessary), you reattach the wheel to your bike. Finally, you true (center) the wheel using a spoke tool. I really hope that we do not need to go through this on the trip…like… really, really hope that it never comes to needing this knowledge. Still, at least after our training session we know a little bit about what we’re doing now.

To wrap up our visit to Jared and Katie’s, we watched some videos from Jared’s trip across the world. His videos of ascending rocky mountain roads, camping in quarries, and cycling along the Croatian coast further inspired/excited Suzie and I for the trip to come. In fact, after leaving their apartment… I even began wondering if 3-months on a bike was long enough…..

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Joining us for the meeting was Dr. Shirley who also works with George at Manna Mission. Thus far, she has been our main contact for the charity and has been wonderfully helpful to us. Also sitting in for the meeting was Lisa from Dr. Shirley’s church. She sat in due to a growing interest in North Korea and the troubles there and to learn more about what our team was doing for fundraising.

After meeting George, we sat down as he told us a bit about his life and how he came to build Manna Mission and the LNKC project. George’s father escaped from North Korea during the Korean War. Living in Busan after the war wasn’t easy for his family in the slightest. War tore Korea apart and the years that followed were a struggle for everyone on the Korean Peninsula. To feed him and his brothers, his parents sent him to an orphanage on Namsan Mountain in Seoul.

Orphanages in Korea were a troubling place for children to grow up during that time. Gangsters and criminals too young to be incarcerated in jails were sent to live there as sort of a juvenile detention center. Daily life for George that year consisted of scrounging for food, being bullied and tormented constantly, and praying for a way of escape. The only means of leaving the orphanage was to have a family member come claim you. Since there was no way of his mother to know of the conditions there, this was a slim possibility.  Thankfully, after applying for an internship at a local church, the minister hired George and took him from the orphanage. He studied theology and eventually moved to London where he has lived ever since.

In 2001, George founded Manna Mission with the hopes that he could help feed, shelter, and care for the starving children of the world. His vision is to build bakeries to feed the hungry in 26 cities throughout North Korea. As of February, there are a total of 4 bakeries in Sariwon, Sanbong, Pyeongyang, and Hyangsan. Beyond this, George and his staff are hard at work funding an orphanage project just over the Chinese border.

We spoke at length of the troubles which plague North Korea and how difficult it is to operate inside the borders. It was then that Suzie and I shared our plans to cycle the Balkans in the name of LNKC and try to help out as best as we can in gaining some donor support. They listened intently as we proposed our plan, reviewed our maps, and talked about our trip to the States prior to our departure. George and Dr. Shirley were thrilled to hear our plans, and we bounced some ideas off each other of how we could best market donor involvement.

After leaving the meeting with heads high and hopeful dreams astir, George treated us to a fantastic meal of Dwaegee Bulgogi. I’ve eaten barbeque a thousand times in this country, and somehow I have never come across this dish. Basically, it is thick strips of pork that gets fire grilled at the table. After 2 plates, we were al spent and couldn’t bear to shovel another mouthful in, yet George was not convinced. He ordered a third plate that took me a great deal of effort to continue to swallow down, luckily it was incredible in the first place making the effort all the more easy.

Suzie and I left the dinner and meeting inspired to continue our work, and possibly even expand it. The idea has been proposed that we fund an entire bakery ourselves and it becomes our own individual project. While those dreams may be a bit too grandiose for the scale of our expectations… who knows what might happen in the next few weeks prior to leaving.

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No stranger to cycling, Katie joined up with our friend Jared (sometimes I feel like his name gets mentioned too much on this site!) back in 2007 to cycle from Seoul, Korea to London, England. In about 6 months, they completed the journey and brought back with them a plethora of incredible stories and a wealth of knowledge about taking long term cycle tours. It was Katie, along with Jared  and Katie E. who convinced Suzie and I to become cyclists in the first place. Katie willingly accepted us under her wing on a trip from Danyang, Korea to Andong promising a beautiful countryside, an exciting ride, and a delicious meal to top it off. While she did fulfill her promises, she forgot to leave out the fact that… cycling ain’t all rainbows and butterflies! Our trip sent us surging over 800 meter climbs during torrential downpours, being attacked by a tribe of angry villagers, and down roads that looked untraveled for at least a few months (okay so I exaggerated one of those… but you get the point)! No doubt though, Katie was beside us the whole way launching forth encouraging words that helped us deal with the pain and just push forward “one peddle at a time,” as she said.

We’re all very excited to have gained our fourth (and potentially final) member to the Biking the Balkans Team in Katie. Her knowledge and experience cycling will be invaluable to us and her sense of humor and determination will help keep the trip ever-upbeat as we peddle on to reach our goal.  You can read more about Katie and Jared’s trip across the world, and more stories of cycling in Korea at www.brakingboundaries.org

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While researching aid organizations that provided North Korean’s with much needed food and supplies, a haunting reality set in showing me how terrible life in the North really is. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Food Program, over 3 million people in North Korea will require food assistance in 2012. Over 1.5 million of those are children. There is absolutely no need to throw anymore facts or figures at you… 1.5 million children will be without adequate food in the year 2012. Of those, who knows how many will die, especially during the notoriously harsh winters that sweep across the Korean Peninsula. It became our goal to find a charity that would make an impact in aiding these children.

A long internet journey had me sweeping through loads of websites in an effort to find the most effective organization that would help us to accomplish this goal. It became increasingly frustrating to learn that, although many aid agencies had the best of intentions, actual services were not being administered on the ground. The DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) has a policy in effect that basically states “every man for themselves.” The people are expected to fend for themselves and feed their own families by any means possible. This means, the party is basically not providing sufficient resources to its people. Further, the policy in effect in the DPRK is “military first.” What food is grown and stored is given to the military and party officials long before it ever reaches the far regions of rural North Korea.

What bothered me most about this were the various accounts that I read that detailed party officials using food aid for themselves, or worse, to sell off for profit so that more weapons (cough, cough, nuclear warheads) could be purchased. It just seemed to me that the larger organizations efforts were not being reflected on the ground. Enter “Manna Mission.”

Love North Korean Children is a charity launched by Manna Mission in 2001 which builds and maintains bakeries insideNorth Korea. Their mission is to feed the children who are malnourished o theKoreanPeninsula. Currently, they operate 4 bakeries in Sonbong,Pyongyang, Hyangsan, and Sariwon. Their goal is to have a total of 26 bakeries operational. What I really liked from the start was that the organization is small and has proven results on the ground in the country. I immediately contacted Reverend George Reeves who put me in touch with Dr. Shirley for our first meeting.

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