You can still vote on your favorite t-shirt too from the last post below. It’s funny, I don’t know if “Don’t Spank” has the most comments, but it does have the most downloads for sure. You guys crack me up! Go leave a comment and get your name in the drawing for your favorite t-shirt! This site will soon have an e-commerce side if everything goes well! Now if I only had my own garment printing machine…

As you may have read, I have had a cramping problem since the DK200. Whenever I try to ride hard, I cramp up. I haven’t done a century ride since, and I was doing one every week up to the big race. I have also been having trouble staying focused (well, more than usual) on things. I did what every man does when things don’t seem right with his health. I waited for my wife to get mad at me and make an appointment for me to see a Doctor. So that’s exciting huh? I had a checkup last Friday. The good news is, no hernias – cough, cough. I will hear about all the blood work and other tests this week.

After the fun doctor’s appointment, I went to High Gear to help Matt with the new website. Go check it out HERE. It’s coming along nicely.

Once again, don’t forget about the photo-cycling tour. I am pretty excited about it. It will be a lot of fun and informative too. Register and learn more HERE. Not only will ride together, we will shoot some Flint Hills pictures together and you can see how easy it was to post process this image from a phone camera.

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

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Posts are far and few between these days as we are packing and getting ready to move all of our belongings to another house. Why do we have all this stuff? Moving is tiring and stressful. This is a great move for us as we are downsizing. This will allow us to live much more simply and adventurously for sure. What’s the use of having a nice house if you can’t do anything?

The Storm

Mikey and I had to make a trip to Wal-Mart (yuck) to get some more packing tape. That’s when I saw the front moving in towards Emporia. I tuned the radio to the local station and they were talking about the storm. Mikey is a momma’s boy, big time and hasn’t spent much time doing “adventures” with Dad. The one thing I remember from the radio announcer was,

“Folks this is not a Kodak moment. Do not go outside…”

As Mikey was repeating things the radio DJ was saying to me in his over the top loud, shrill, four year old voice, we hurried home and I ran inside to grab my camera. I knew this could be a good one. Jen was busy, so Mikey was coming with me. He was a little scared since Momma doesn’t like storms.

I was “ye hawing” trying to get Mikey excited about the storm. He was scared. He wanted to go home and get in the basement. This may sound like child abuse, but I have lived in Kansas and haved watched storms since I was in second grade. My family was in a tornado when I was three or four. I have been chasing them since college. This storm just looked like rain, nothing too crazy. I can’t explain my fascination, but I love a good storm.

The lightning was amazing as we drove just outside of town. I found a spot and we watched the cold front roll in from the confines of the Corolla. It went from the mid 90s to the mid 70s (mid 30s to 20′s for my Canadian friends) in a matter of minutes. I had my window down and the camera pointed out the window. It was only around 7 p.m. and it was getting dark. I had to move the ISO up to 400, but I didn’t want to go too high because of the noise that it would produce in the shadows of the clouds. I hand held the camera at the ready and waited for lighting. My shutter speed was set pretty slow (around a 15th or 30th of a sec) so I could capture the lightning and let the sensor soak in as much light as possible for the ground and clouds. My f-stop was wide open to soak in as much light as I could too. I focused where I thought the lightning would strike in the distance. I had to stay as steady as possible and wait. I tried to get the lightning streaking through the sky many times and kept missing. Mikey was getting into it screaming excitedly at the lightning like at fourth of July fireworks and then he’d ask me if I got that one. Nope, missed it again!

Finally I got one. Not as spectacular as some of the lightning we were seeing, but I will take what I can get! I got one more shot with lightning before the rain really started coming down and we had to head home.

My wife asked how I got the purple color in the lightning. I didn’t. That is the actual color. I used Adobe LR and PS to enhance the contrast and color balance, but that’s it.

That was a nice break. Time to get back to packing…

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

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I have racked my brain, day and night, since my finish at the DK200 trying to figure out what would be the best gift for a DK 200 participant, family member or just someone that loves the Flint Hills. After much thought and restless nights, I figured it out. A beautiful archivally printed photograph from the Adventure Monkey would be perfect! I just can’t think of a better way to remember the Flint Hills than a landscape on the wall or taped to your mirror or tacked to your cubicle wall.

Since you weren’t as lucky as Ellee Thalheimer from Portland, Oregon to win the David Pals award, you have other options that I have just made available today.

David Pals Award Winner

I have many 8×10 prints available to purchase. Most of them are ready to ship the same day. I am keeping the price to a low $20.00 per original signed print and I can ship five of them with one low shipping charge too, just in case you wanted more than one. How to get one you ask?

You can click the store button on the top menu or just go HERE. Yes, I know my “store” is pretty ghetto, but hopefully one day we will look back on this time and laugh at my lack of sales and html skills. And on that day all of you will be wearing Adventure Monkey gear, sipping on Adventure Monkey Pickle Juice and reading the latest issue of Adventure Monkey Magazine too. Excuse me, I was daydreaming there for a second.

Just in case you were wondering, any image you see on this site can be printed and sold. The canvas prints like the one in the picture above are my favorites. They are vibrant, large, and very modern looking. I’m not just saying that, they are really breathtaking. If you want something like that or need anything else just shoot me an email any time.

Yes, I know, I need a “real” ecommerce site to sell stuff, but until then, visit my “store” page and order something.

Magazine News

I know, it has taken me forever to finish the latest magazine. It has been proofed and edits are being made and the final proof will be made this week. Soon, very soon, it will be ready. We had a big party last release, but this time I have contributors from all over the country. I need to think of a way to release Issue Two with a BANG! Maybe we will have another party for whoever can show up and a Flint Hills Ride the day after. Just a thought. Let me take a second to tip my hat to all the contributors for Issue Two. There are great stories and amazing photography in this issue – and I am picky about that stuff. This magazine would not be anything without all your help. Thanks so much. Want a preview? Here you go.

This is as close as you're going to get, for about a week or so...

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

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Here’s a recap of the journey of Adventure Monkey so far:

I had a great corporate job that paid great money and also had great benefits. I hated it. I am just not the regular job kind of guy. Some people are, some aren’t. I get bored, restless and depressed unless I feed the adventure monkey inside (just like you). Going somewhere every day for 12 hours to do meaningless things was getting to me. Still is in fact. That was the motivation I needed to do something, but it didn’t hit me until…

…I got on my bike again. You can read about it in the archives, but cycling became my outlet where I could breathe, think, and recharge, no matter how frustrating work life became. On one of those rides, I decided to close down the side business of weddings and portraits and start the Adventure Monkey site. I would shoot for my own need to be creative. No more cheesy portraits, or clients,  just shooting what and how I wanted to.

I put a rack on the bike and started taking the camera on rides and this site was born. Soon I wanted more. I decided I needed to start “living for real” and wanted to start doing great things with my time. I needed a way to throw down the gauntlet and actually DO SOMETHING rather than talking about it for once. The DK 200 was it for me. If I could do that, anything was possible.

Now that’s it’s over and I am recovered, I am glad I did it and encourage all my readers to find a gauntlet throwing adventure to do – something that can symbolically jump start your life. Why? Finishing the DK 200 took all I had physically and mentally. I always wanted to do great things, but in my opinion, I never really did. I didn’t know I was even capable of overcoming such great odds, such great pain to finish something. Now I do. It’s good to know that about yourself. I hold my head a bit higher and just feel better about things. Now I am going to need to do something even greater. That’s how I roll.

There are a lot of things on my radar, but having a real job pretty much gets in the way of most of them. As you know, I am hoping that Adventure Monkey takes off and frees me from the cubicle world of corporate design. (If you ever have any advice, I will take it – seriously,  just email me.) But I always have to remember the reason Adventure Monkey exists. It is not to make me money, that would just be a nice benefit. The whole reason for its existence is to inspire you, the readers to be better people, to do great things and to make your world a better place because of it. I cannot stand the couch mentality we have – it’s time to get off the couch and live life to the fullest. We are here for a limited time. There are things inside each of us that we want to do. No one is stuck. Choices need to be made. Make them. Oh and by the way, it’s easier to make those hard choices wearing an Adventure Monkey t-shirt, just sayin’.

So immediately, something is sitting before me and it is a beautiful thing. It is the proof of Issue Two of Adventure Monkey Magazine. It is magnificent. The quality of writing and photography in this issue is amazing to me. I will once again use magcloud.com to print it and I will be offering it free as a pdf. I am hoping someday to make some money off advertising, but I am not making any money on it. I just want to get it into the world. These inspirational stories need to be told. That being said, I will be selling it at cost through magcloud.com and will let you know when it is available. (Hopefully late this week or early next week.) Want to help out? Purchase a bunch of them and take them to your local bike shops or sporting good stores or coffee shops or wherever you see fit. I need a bit of help getting it out there. I couldn’t get any advertisers to help out with that yet, so it’s up to us. You are my sales force, and I feel pretty confident about that.

So what’s next after that? I have some great ideas for ways to push myself. Some announcements will be coming up soon.

Also, I have been getting emails about pictures of the DK200 roads for gifts. I have many left over from the DK 200 booth and will soon have them available to purchase here at a very reasonable price. Stay tuned.

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

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I take it easy and make sure to eat and drink well the day before a big ride, but it wasn’t in the cards for me this time. Melissa had a softball tournament in Hillsboro, Kansas on Saturday. I didn’t realize it, but I would be sitting outside in the wind and heat for 11 hours. Top that off with not eating well, drinking enough water and getting home really late, and I was headed for disaster.

The alarm went off on Sunday morning at 5 a.m. After a full day of sitting in hot wind and sunshine, eating hamburgers and snack food, not drinking enough water and getting to bed around 11:30 p.m., I was way too tired to wake up, so I hit the snooze. I finally got up, ate breakfast, packed up and was pedaling by just after 8 a.m. To be honest, I was tired, but was motivated to get in a great ride.

I also did something that I have never done before on a ride. I brought a point and shoot camera with me instead of the DSLR. I didn’t know how long I would be riding before I would see another town with a store, so I brought 100 oz. of water with me in the backpack. I wasn’t about to add the weight of the Nikon D300 in the pack on top of that, so I took my wife’s Canon PS SX 100 IS. Nothing too fancy about this camera at all. I was determined to focus on cycling and leave the camera on full Auto mode too. Would I get anything good? Well, this post proves that it’s not the camera that takes a good picture, it’s the operator (yeah so I guess there’s a few good ones, hopefully you agree). Framing the image (composition) is what’s important (after proper exposure of course).

A major difference between my D300 and a point and shoot is the huge sensor and ability to shoot in RAW mode. Notice in the images that the highlights are blown out and lacking detail compared to when I shoot with the Nikon. Shooting JPEGs is nice because they are compressed and therefore smaller files, but to be compressed the computer in the camera throws out the details in the highlights and deep shadows. That means they are gone. No amount of post processing can get the lost details back. They are gone for good. The smaller sensor also captures less resolution and is a lot noisier than a nice big sensor. That said, I felt a freedom I have never felt with my big camera. A lot of these shots were taken while pedaling. Many of these shots wouldn’t have been captured with the big camera that I have to stop and get out of the backpack or trunkbag to use. In a matter of seconds I had my shot versus a matter of minutes to get the big camera out of the bag.

Nothing can change the fact that I hate framing an image on a little LCD screen – Yuck. In fact, I didn’t think I was getting anything good. I am used to framing the image in the viewfinder.

I must say, I will be looking into a smaller camera for the bike after this experience. Now, back to the regular broadcast.

I left town and headed North. For about 20 miles I had a nice tailwind blowing me down the hilly roads. It was morning, I had cool temperatures and I was feeling great. Nothing much better than being pushed along by a tailwind.

I pulled out the camera and took this first shot while pedaling. I was hoping it wouldn't rain on my mini DK plans.

Sun rays peeking through. All things were great here - A strong tailwind, beautiful scenery, a fast bike, fresh legs and a point and shoot camera. Notice the lost highlights in the upper left.

Heading north with a strong tailwind about to hit some downhills and get some serious speed going.

I passed by Kahola Lake, headed west and then south for miles of riding into a fierce Kansas headwind. I was ready for it this time. I needed some hard miles to prepare for the Dirty Kanza.

After 20 miles of a sweet tailwind, I turned into the wind and was tortured for the remainder of the day.

Miles of hills and headwind on Victory Road (Road V)

Time to stop, stretch and take a picture of the Trek X01, a nice bike but not as photogenic as the Fargo

So yeah, I know the sprung seat looks a bit out of place on the Trek but it will save my butt on the DK200!

A little more bike porn. I love that carbon fork!

Another thing I was wanting to do is test out my tire choice. I was using the near slick Kenda Kwest on the rear and a Bontrager XR1 on the front, both with slime tubes. I was decided on going with the good sized XR1′s on the Fargo for the DK 200. Now that I am riding the Trek X01, that big tire won’t fit on the back. I needed a smaller tire. I was going to go with a Schwalbe Marathon, but my friend Matt at High Gear thought they would be pretty heavy for a 200 mile race, although they are very puncture resistant. Getting in on the conversation that day was Dustin Burgardt, a three time Dirty Kanza veteran. He has used the Kendas every time without a flat and said they are fast rolling too. Gravel is not like single track. It’s not like I need a lot of traction as much as I need to go fast for 200 miles. I am putting the bigger XR1 on the front for cushion and help in cornering.

All in all, I rode over some harsh roads, some mud and climbed many hills. I had no problem with traction and had no flats. I feel pretty good about my choice so far.

I hit a bit of slop which threw mud all over me. I was looking like a real cyclocross cyclist now.

I rode through Cottonwood Falls and then went west out of town on 8th street. Now I was into unknown territory for me. The wind was beating the crap out of me. I was heading west and south. The wind was relentless. The road seemed to never change and the gusts were torturous. My ears were deafened by the sound of jet engines as the wind blew by my ears. It became discouraging to put so much effort into pedaling and to look up and see the same scenery for so many miles.

Curve ahead on a road I haven't traveled before, I caught a bird in flight, but notice no details in the white sky.

Same curve, wider view. I made the sensor focus more on the sky to get some details in the sky in Auto mode.

Trying to get used to using a point and shoot. I hate using an LCD screen to frame the shot. Notice the look of disdain on my face. Little did I know the images would look as good as they did, well except for this one.

Looking back at the beautiful Flint Hills after I climbed my last hill against the blowing wind.

Focus on the sky, the ground is too dark. Focus on the ground and the sky detail is lost. Focusing on the road or horizon seemed to do the trick. This road actually goes forever when the wind is gusting 40mph in your face.

Same road? No, check the details. The fact is, I pedaled into the wind for miles and miles and the road seemed to never change. My sanity was hanging on by a thin thread.

Tree in the Flint Hills. I was looking for any reason to stop at this point.

Another fault of the point and shoot - too easy to take pictures of myself instead of pedal.

Different road again. This is what makes cycling in Kansas so difficult - unchanging scenery, heat and high winds.

There was one point where I had to just stop pedaling and stand. It was hard to take the beating of the wind. I stopped, took a swig of my Perpetuem paste, put my head down, tried to clear my mind and pedaled on.

Finally, a curve in the road, anything to make the miles go by.

There's my speedster, the Trek X01. After I have High Gear put on that carbon stem, I think I'll be good to go.

I was happy to finally be heading back east, but the crosswind wasn’t much better. The important thing to me at this time was that I was not giving up and continued to pedal on.

Excuse my French, but I just became a badass.

At this point I was headed East near the turnpike and was now fighting a nice crosswind.

Another hill.

And another hill. I was going for a tough ride to prove to myself I could finish the DK200.

Fenceposts

At this point, somewhere around 70 to 80 miles in, I was beat. I started to get a headache around 85 to 90 miles in and finally had to stop and pee for the first time. It (the pee) had the appearance of concentrated Gatorade and I knew I had better drink some more water. I was to the point that I didn’t want to drink anything and I felt a little queasy, so I forced myself to drink to hydrate myself. I didn’t realize how hot it had gotten outside until I would stop riding and feel the hot, humid air. I would immediately be drenched in sweat. I believe I was to the point where I had used up all my body had to use as energy. I was running on Perpetuem, Accelgel and nuun enhanced water. Suddenly I felt the need to eat real food. Pickles, chips and a sandwich is all I could think about. I was a little worried about myself physically at this point, but forcing the water down and taking sips of the Perpetuem kept me going. I will tell you the truth, this had become the hardest ride of my life. The messed up thing about it was, was that I was happy about it. I actually wanted to push myself to the limit and then go a little farther. If I could do this, I could do the DK 200 with good nutrition and less weight in the backpack. Since I had gone out by myself, I put everything in the backpack but the kitchen sink and the Nikon. That extra weight was harsh on my body.

Cows were freaking out all day as I rode by, but not this one

After taking a beating most of the day, I headed up this hill to fight the headwind some more.

I got off the bike to stretch my back out with some of Jen's Yoga poses.

One last shot of the Trek X01 before I headed up that hill.

Looking back at the ribbon of a road that I just pedaled into the fierce headwind

I'm hurting here, so much that I stopped to take another picture of myself.

Curves and cows.

These rocks brought to you by the Dirty Kanza 200!

The beauty of Spring in the Flint HIlls.

Riding on a high ridge with the wind blasting me from the side.

Green hills

I liked the sliver of a road peeking out from among the hills. Notice the bird flying too.

I loved the ribbon-like curvy road flowing by the tree.

Dreaming of real food, I finally see the Madison water tower in the distance. Yeah, that's what I thought too - it's still far away, but close enough to motivate me to pedal harder.

And pedal harder I did. I was amazed and actually proud of myself for keeping on going as hard as I was. Madison ended up being farther away than I wanted. But the downhill into town was worth it.

I made it - Casey's in Madison, KS. Time to get a sandwich!

As bad as I thought I wanted that sandwich, juice and candy bar, I was still tired when I got back on the bike. My body was sore, but I had a little ways to go to get home yet. Notice the bike computer above is right at 100 miles. I was going to find some gravel to add some more miles between Madison and Emporia and stay off the pavement. The roads around Madison are quite hilly. Even though I now had a tailwind, I was too tired to fully enjoy it, but I was still pedaling.

Leaving Madison and climbing more hills. I wanted to lay in the grass next to the bike.

Those tiny buildings and water tower in the distance is Emporia, yeah a little ways to go yet.

I was getting closer to home now. I pedaled hard as the roads smoothed out and the tailwind carried me along. I didn’t use any butt butter this time, and was regretting that choice as I tried to find a comfortable spot to sit. I didn’t get any actual saddle sores, but I was feeling pretty raw down there.

Finally back in Emporia. I loved the way the sun hit the building downtown.

I made it! It’s hard to describe to feeling of accomplishment I had after this ride. I was beat, near dehydrated, sore all over, and I felt great! I knew I could tackle the DK 200 in two weeks, I just knew it. All in all, I rode 131 miles and averaged 13.5 mph. My breaks were very short and I made good time considering almost killing myself from lack of day before nutrition and dehydration, not to mention the brutal Kansas winds.

Yes, I am still worried about finishing the DK 200 in two weeks, but now I feel my chances are better than ever. I hope to make it across the finish line in time for the awards ceremony at 9 or 9:30 p.m.

Feed Your Monkey!
Eric

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On the note of Flint Hills images, I am running out of time to choose one for a special prize to be announced for one lucky Dirty Kanza 200 rider this year. Help me out. If you have a favorite image of a Flint Hills scene with a road going through it, let me know. Leave a comment or shoot me an email. I am having the hardest time deciding on which image to print.

Enjoy the images. I am going to take care of some details to get Adventure Monkey’s first T-shirt produced. (Jen is helping out too, of course.)

I like the way this image captured the dreary and lonely mood of last weekend's long ride.

The rocky Flint Hills

New life in the Flint Hills

The weather is nice, get outside and Feed Your Monkey!
-Eric

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You know how people are right? When we get bad customer service we tell everyone. Sometimes we spread the news about good customer service but only when it’s very, very good. Let me spread some news. I have had a great experience with Magcloud.com. I received my stack of magazines YESTERDAY (Monday) and I was worried about getting them by Friday! Their customer service reps let me know what was going on the entire time. I contacted them about my crazy deadline up front and they came through with no problems. On top of that, the magazines (besides the typo) look incredible. I hope it’s not just me.

Topping off this experience, I sent the cover to get printed and mounted for the release party at my photography lab in Kansas City. The person running the printer (Dee Dee) noticed the typo and I was contacted! What? Yes that’s right. She had every right to go ahead and print that image as is, but saw the typo and saved me a huge amount of grief and money. The embarassment didn’t go away, but I need humbling every so often. If you are a professional photographer and want great looking prints and great customer service check out portraitcity.net. Tell them Eric Benjamin sent you. I am looking for some brownie points.

Party is still on people, and we have RSVPs from some out of towners too! I am pumped and very unprepared. Good thing Jennifer has me covered. You will meet her at the party, she’s my lovely wife. If you need more details or directions to the party please contact me. You don’t want to miss it. Ladies, I am buying Bobby, the cover model new pens to sign autographs and I have my fingers crossed for an appearance of the man that only needs one name, Seagato. I believe Matt and Stephanie will take a break from the new bike shop to join us too. This Saturday at 7:00 p.m. HERE’s more details. And there will be some sort of Flint Hills ride on Sunday morning. We will pace ourselves with whoever shows up. Don’t worry about being too slow or anything like that. It will be anywhere from 30 to 70 miles depending on who shows up. It won’t be a race. If Seagato and others show up, they will race, but I will hang back to make sure no one gets lost and eaten by coyotes or stampeded by cattle. Just kidding, I can’t stop cattle, but seriously.

Ok, as usual, I have talked (typed) too much. Let’s see some pictures. Last Sunday I may have had the best ride of the year so far. I was by myself and decided to ride at a comfortable but challenging pace with no destination in mind. I ended up taking a lot of pictures and getting a great workout, but more importantly I got that feeling again. There’s a feeling I reach, a high if you will, when I ride just to ride and begin to enjoy the bike, the road, the surroundings and even start talking to the animals. I got there and it was great. There’s a great story, but I will just let you see some of the pictures and say, my Adventure Monkey was fed - well.

Feed Your Monkey!
-Eric

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I am just a little guy, the youngest of three kids, and I can’t say that anyone has ever called me tough or crazy, I don’t think (except for that one time…). Growing up, I was a moma’s boy and would rather hang out with her than do manly stuff with my dad. Wrestling? I lasted two weeks before I decided rolling around on a mat in tights in the clutches of another sweaty male of my species was out of the question. Fixing the car, building a shed, or working in the garage with Dad and my big brother? Nope, I was most likely playing house or school with my sister or taking a long walk exploring the countryside with my dog and a big stick. I loved those long walks.

I am normally pretty low key and don’t take big physical risks. I never could do big jumps on my BMX bike or any cool tricks on my mountain bike either. Competitive? We are all competitive to a certain extent, but when it comes to riding through extreme pain to catch Matt on his bike, I just can’t do it. I don’t have that animal instinct. But the one thing I am is a dreamer.

When I was young, I would read, draw and dream of things bigger than myself. I loved music and I loved to be outside.

All that said, how does a dreamer find himself enjoying a bicycle ride in a -5 degree snowstorm? It is because I said earlier this is the year to do something great. This is the year to, “believe in the beauty of my dreams.” It is time to quit talking and start doing. It is time to “let my yes be yes and my no be no.” It is time to quit saying,

“I should”

“I need to”

“I wish I could”

“I can’t wait until…”

It’s time to just do it (Oh crap, I just quoted Nike.) It is time to make a list and do the things we were put here to do.

Have you ever thought about it? I have. I only have one life with an infinite amount of time to live it. Am I living it, or just walking in a daze following the crowd and doing nothing?

This year I am doing something. But why the cold weather rides when I absolutely hate the cold?

I have to make goals so that I have something to shoot for. (Putting them on the internet for the world to read makes it tougher to slack off too.) Hopefully you didn’t make goals for 2010 and then forget about them. Write them down and put them in a prominent place. Look at them every month to see how you are doing and make adjustments if needed.

Goals are worthless if you don’t have an action plan made to meet those goals. All an action plan does is break those big goals into small baby steps that are easy to take. If all the steps are taken, the goal is met. Every journey begins, continues and ends one step at a time.

February 24, it’s a good time to look at the goals I made for 2010 and evaluate my progress and make changes instead of ending the year failing to do anything I set out to do the year before.

I decided along with others out there that 2010 was the time to do something great. In order to prove to myself that I can do something great, I decided to skip the small stuff and go for the gusto – finish the Dirty Kanza 200 in 2010. That is why I am riding all winter long. I need to stay in shape and build endurance to ride 205 miles of mind pounding gravel through the Flint Hills. No excuses, no regrets. I have a goal to meet. That is why you may see me riding in the snow or in the basement on the rollers instead of watching TV. I am tired of letting life pass me by. It is my turn to get some!

I’d be lying if I said I was meeting all my goals for 2010. I need to work on the family goals, that’s for sure.

Adventure Monkey is also flying to places I hadn’t dreamed of just one month ago. A magazine is being created by my readers and myself about Adventure cycling in Kansas! That’s what happens when you listen to that small voice and put yourself out there. Things begin to happen that are bigger than yourself. This magazine will be worth the wait my faithful readers! I am finishing up just a few things to have it ready in a week or so!

It’s time to quit wasting time on the computer or in front of the TV and look at the goals you’ve made for yourself this year. This is a great time to evaluate and adjust. Let’s make this year one to remember!

I’m riding Friday snow or no snow. Let me know if you want to go!

Feed Your Monkey!

-Eric

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The other reason is that Kansas looks like a frozen wasteland in the winter. It’s worth a picture or two and then it gets old. We’ve had so much snow and moisture, that it has kept me off the good gravel roads in the Flint HIlls – bummer. 

I guess it’s a good thing I’m such a great writer and can keep you highly entertained. 

New Magazine News

Adventure Monkey the Magazine is now coming to life. As my faithful know, I was going to create the Kansas Bicycling magazine to make fun of the ultrapopular Bicycling magazine, but too many of my faithful commented on how the name Adventure Monkey would be, as one reader said, “a kick*ss magazine!” Here’s why: The vision for this blog was to show pictures and discuss the life of my Adventure Monkey to inspire others to get off the couch and do something great with their lives. I feed my Adventure Monkey on my bike and with my camera and hence the content of this blog. But not everyone, believe it or not, is a bicycle fanatic. Other people feed their Adventure Monkey in other ways. A magazine named the Adventure Monkey would be able to discuss “Feeding Your Monkey” in many ways. Yes, as long as I am a part of it, cycling and photography will be a major emphasis, but it is now opened up to writing stories about many great adventures. And come on, Kansas Bicycling? That will attract a huge following around the world I’m sure. 

For example, I have a friend that hasn’t ridden a bike in years. He’s a quiet guy and fairly reserved and logical about things. On the other hand he leads short term mission trips to help the poor and needy in South Texas and Mexico. That is definitely an adventure worth writing about. 

There’s also an ulterior motive in this scheme too. If we are writing about all these adventures it would mean the writers and I would have to travel and live out some of these adventures for the magazine right? Right. I can see it now…goodbye cubicle. 

Please excuse my lack of updating in the next week or two, but I am working on the magazine layout. It is coming along quite nicely. It may be the coolest looking magazine you have ever seen. I am sure companies will be scrambling over each other to get into the next issue. 

I will be posting it here as a pdf for your viewing pleasure. In the future maybe we will find a way to actually print some. A full color magazine is expensive to print. Let me know if you have connections or ideas! I will be doing research, because this first issue has been a great challenge to work on. 

I hope this Friday is nice. I need a really long gravel ride! 

Feed Your Monkey!
-Eric

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Right now life is getting exciting. Do you ever just feel like things are coming together sometimes? Hopefully it’s not just me being bipolar with the winter blues hitting hard. Here’s what’s up…

This post was just for fun and I was joking around. Bobby said he’d shoot the cover shot I joked about. Cool, we shot it. Then people starting saying it would be cool to have a Kansas Bicycling magazine. Yeah right. But then I started thinking. Why not? I have the ability to put it together professionally. At least 41 people will see it and maybe a handful will actually read it. It didn’t seem like there was anything to lose on this one. Let’s do it.

Sunday, I sent out emails to everyone I knew that could possibly write something for this magazine. Everyone got back with me fully supportive and excited to submit something. Cool, I started to get pumped about it. Maybe it would end up being successful. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter, for now it’s fun. Thanks to everyone writing and submitting pictures! I wish I could pay, but issue one has exactly zero subscribers and the same amount of advertisers. I will post it as a pdf to download and see if anyone besides me and the contributers read it. I am sure I will soon have bicycle and camera companies scrambling to advertise.

The one stipulation I have is I want this magazine to be “real” even if I only produce one issue. By real I mean no sissy stuff. Any reviews will be fully opinionated by the reviewer. I am tired of reading nothing but positive reviews in other magazines trying to keep advertisers happy. I want to know the good AND the bad stuff. The stories will be from real, competitive cycling Kansas athletes and from people like you and me that need to lose a few pounds and simply love cycling. It will not be limited to but will focus on cycling in Kansas. The more I think about it, the more it’s taking shape in my mind. Uh Oh.

I was going to post my spoof cover this week, but I want to reveal issue one complete. So all of you that wanted to hang the cover shot of Bobby on your wall will have to wait a couple of weeks or so.

I started playing with the “flag” for the cover.

Just a tentative attempt here

Feed Your Monkey!
-Eric

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