We’re T-minus five days from our departure date and Geraldine has made me a nifty color-coded to do list with items like “Make cue sheets” and “Figure out Charlottesville wineries and distilleries to visit.” I’m taking care of that stuff, I promise, but I’m also brainstorming how I am going to keep us from getting sunburned and windburned on our trip. I seem to go through an entire tube of chapstick everytime I go on a long ride and I hate to think of the helmet tan I could develop on a two-week trip. I asked my favorite style guru, Jenn Falik, for her favorite heavy-duty moisturizers, sunscreens, and lip balms. Stay tuned for what she has to say!

Adventure Cycling publishes a series of biking maps designed just for cyclists. The maps include information on bike shops (crucial in the event of a breakdown or malfunction), nearby food and water supplies, and cheap accommodation options. Naturally, we’re going to want some of those.

Even though the Tour du Sud is looking a bit shorter these days – two weeks instead of two months – we’ll still need enough microfiber and spandex to get us through approximately 40 miles a day, plus cute outfits to wear at night.

We’ve laid out three routes, which we think represent the most interesting parts of our original tour. And we’re soliciting your thoughts. While we can’t promise we’ll pick the route that gets the most votes, we will take it into consideration. Check out our poll (People’s Choice) at the bottom of the site. So far, I am the only one who has voted. So get a move on people.

Success:  Mollie and G have created separate accounts and registered as administrators for the bikesandbiscuits blog.  Snafu: Even though our private dashboard tells us who wrote which blog post, I can’t figure out how to get the public blog to display the info.  Hmm.  Tech geeks, please help!

Some of our friends and family have expressed concern about us pedaling what they call “the wilds of the south.” Being optimistic – and perhaps naive – we think we’ll be just fine. (Although we’re currently soliciting applications for domestiques for the hilly portions.) But should we need one, Papa Chen is on board to be our support crew — if only so he can buy a gleaming vintage Airsteam.

We’re a week and half into our new plan and already big things are happening: yesterday we had a fantastic meeting with the CEO of Tasting Table (the best daily food email – sign up if you haven’t already). They are going to be our web sponsors, which means we’ll have an awesome (and pretty!) website and the ears/eyes of their savvy subscribers. Now we have even more reason to get our butts in gear.

To Do:
Geraldine – finish fleshing out route so we can start soliciting recommendations from friends about where to stay/what to do along the way; map route online and talk to map designer; figure out how much this is all going to cost us

Mollie – Beat Mail Chimp into submission so we can have a clean email distribution list; tweet interesting things about the planning process; brainstorm possible sponsors; think of ways to look cute while biking; tap into network of techy friends for help with questions like “how do i, uh, make a website”

As you can see, Mollie would be lost without Geraldine.

When I was shopping for my road bike it became apparent that it was going to take a village to help me make a decision. Papa Chen was sending me Craig’s List listings and helpful youtube videos like “How to Shift Shimano Levers!,” while another friend was encouraging me to go into credit card debt to trade up to a full carbon bike. Every bike I considered went to several village-members for feedback. In the end I did what I do best and went for the prettiest and most expensive option. But the village was critical in helping me get to that point. Now we need your help again: we want to tap into your collective wisdom, imagination, creativity, and experience to finalize these two very important things:

1. A sweet name. Short and snappy, easy to remember, easy to spell. Alliteration is a plus.

2. A route! G has sketched out an awesome diagonal journey from Virginia to Louisiana but we still have some blanks and are talking nominees for cool people we should meet up with, places we should eat, and things we should do. Any and all ideas welcome. Google map (or similar) with tenatative route to follow.

Last night, I trekked over to Dumbo to meet my friend Sam, who is one of the smartest kids I know and the founder of Drop.io, an awesome file-sharing site. He’s a serious tech nerd, and given to making sweeping announcements like, “Media is dead” and “Content is dead.” To say we come from different worlds is an understatement, which is why I really wanted to get his take on the idea. (He also bought me delicious Mexican food at Hecho en Dumbo.)

Talking to Sam brought up a lot of questions about the best way to go about this grand adventure. The main takeaway was that we should be approaching this organically, using social media to gain followers and local intel. We were all set to invest a big chunk of money at the get-go to create a super stylish website. But we’re now convinced that we can start with something simple and start loading it up with content (Thus our newly launched website and twitter feed). We know it isn’t much to look at, but we’re putting it out there – and making this project real, one post at a time.