And so it begins......

“Hey Reid check out the link I sent you on two guys riding fixies across the Nullarbor…”

It’s funny how things start out. Í have many ideas for raising funds through slightly challenging, come ridiculously hard events. Many die a natural death and never get past first base. One year we seriously considered having a race from Sydney to Brisbane between Kayakers and runners. It seemed like a very good idea. But it died. Then Andy wanted to ride his bike across the Nullarbor…backwards. I tried to explain to him that there is no way we would get a permit to do that! The conversation went like:

“Andy we won’t get a permit for that”

“Why not?”

“Ummm, riding a bike backwards on a public road is illegal”

“Why do we even need a permit?”

“Your shout, think of something else…”

Then came this video of the two guys riding Atma fixies across the Nullarbor. I have in the back of my mind always wanted to try the Peth to Sydney cycling record. Andy wanted to ride his bike backwards across the Nullarbor. So we met in the middle and decided to ride fixies from Perth to Sydney, then finally threw on the extra 400km to end in Brisbane.

For whatever reason this concept hung around, grew and before we knew we opened our big mouths and started telling people this is what we are going to do. James from Atma cycles surprising jumped on board and offered to give us the bikes we needed! We then needed to find 2 more cyclists as we wanted to do this in a non-stop relay format with 4 cyclists. Kelvin was nominated (or thrown under the bus depending on how you look at it) by Ba Lackson, the Director of EW Zambia as one of the cyclists. More about his story over the coming weeks! Then Hedgy, a mates and one of the key support guys shared the concept with Eloise, the Acting Principal of Faith Lutheran College at Victoria Point. For whatever reason (probably slightly nuts also) she loved the idea and jumped on board as the forth rider!

So, this is going to be good. In a painful sense. 4200km on a fixie is not the smartest idea but we hope the idea can raise some very good dollars to bring quality education and care into the lives of vulnerable children – which is a very good idea.

Reid