Welcome to Cycling for Leader Dogs.

Cycling for Leader Dogs is a trans-America solo bicycle tour from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. The goal of this effort is to increase awareness and raise money in support of Leader Dogs for the Blind.

Follow us on FACEBOOK. Keep track of Lion Mark's progress through his ONLINE CYCLING JOURNALS.
Curious what his route will be? Take a look at the the TRIP ROUTE MAP. Have questions? Send Lion Mark an EMAIL.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Planning, planning and more planning.

With the trip less than four months away (departure date is June 16th), there is a lot of planning to get accomplished.  Trip route planning, club contacts, written communications, fundraising strategies, equipment preparations and of course lots of training to get done.

Here is an update on some of the progress being made.  One of the first tasks to work on was coming up with a trip logo and ordering sponsorship pins.  My daughter Jessie (a designer by training) helped produce the sponsorship pin.  With the help of pinpros.com, we were able to get the initial order of these pins underway.  The pins should arrive in the next few weeks.  With a 3,500 mile trip, anyone who provides a one cent per mile sponsorship (or at least $35 donation) will receive a pin.  To meet our goal, we will need to secure 1,086 individual "one penny per mile" sponsors to surpass our $38,000 target.

The next task in the communications department was to design a card (baseball cards size) to hand out to people to explain the trip and what we are raising money for (Leader Dogs for the Blind).  Additionally, these cards can be handed out along the journey to quickly communicate to people what we are working to accomplish.

We have also been working on getting this blog up and running so those interested will be able to follow our progress.  The web address for this site was also secured (www.CyclingForLeaderDogs.org) so people can easily find the site and join the cause.  My wife Debbie will also be working on creating a Cycling for Leader Dogs Facebook page as well, so stay tuned for this addition.  She will also be the keeper of the blogs once I am on the road as well as taking care of all the long distance trip logistics.