A friend of ours is planning to go for a bike ride next month. So far, nothing too unusual, I grant you. The fact that he hopes to raise £20,000 for Shelter, a charity based back home in Britain gives you a small clue as to the scale of the task he has set himself…
Head on over to Because I Hate Airports, or directly to the About page perhaps, as he hasn’t yet started his ride, and there are no “normal” posts yet. In case you haven’t heard of Shelter before, they provide advice, info & advocacy to homeless people or those who live in bad housing. Check out the second link for a more detailed explanation of why Ollie has chosen to raise funds for that charity.
So where is he planning his little bike ride for? Land’s End to John o’ Groats? Nope, just a little further… Perhaps London To Istanbul? Nyet, he is aiming for London to BRISBANE (for those that failed geography, that is in Australia)!
A couple of his brothers happen to be in Australia, so I’m sure he’ll get a warm welcome when he arrives, however you can help in two ways…
1) If you live along the route above, and want to offer advice (local bike shops in case of emergency, roads to avoid etc.), accommodation or a quick bite to eat, or have undertaken such a huge ride before and want to pass on insights, follow him on twitter and send a message, leave a comment on his blog, or if you get really desperate, leave me a comment and I’ll pass it on to him. Remember he is leaving on April the 16th though, so don’t put it off!
2) DONATE, DONATE, DONATE! Once my next pay cheque comes through, I’ll be donating what I can using the widget on his blog, or the one below. Whether it is a dollar (saved by not going large on your next MacD’s meal) or a few hundred due to your horse coming in first on an accumulator bet, every little helps!
[edit]
I forgot to say, if you are in a country (like Kazakhstan) where blogspot sites are blocked are unreachable due to technical issues that will take years to fix, you can…
a) Remote into a PC of a friend in a different country – LogMeIn, VNC, Remote Desktop, VPN, whatever you are used to
b) Use a proper proxy server (though if it is a free one, turn it off before donating)
c) Use Opera (a browser like Chrome, Firefox or IE) and turn on the Turbo mode. Pretty much like b) but less work 🙂
Also, PayPal surprised me by not showing a big fat 0, so I’ve got the ball rolling. If you can’t donate, maybe leave him a good luck type message on his blog, or if you run a site yourself, consider linking to his?