Once again, my brother and I are riding the 90km from Sydney to Wollongong for charity. As always, this event is to raise money for the MS Society, helping fund research and to provide care for people suffering multiple sclerosis. I would very much appreciate any donations (everything over $2 is tax deductible) and you can do that here. If… Read more →
Danya and I rode the 2014 Gong yesterday. It was a good day out on the bike and we were met at the end by his girlfriend – it’s nice to have a welcoming committee It was a chilly start, at around 15 degrees, with strong headwinds for the first part of the ride. As we entered the Royal National… Read more →
First, a big thank you to all who have already donated – it’s very much appreciated. As you may be aware, my brother and I rode the MS Sydney to Wollongong Ride on November 3 – roughly 90km – in support of the MS Society. Funds raised help provide care for sufferers of this debilitating disease and go towards searching… Read more →
He’s reached his MS Gong Ride fund-raising target. I’m still lagging, but I set myself a higher target. If fund-raising were a competition, I guess I just lost 🙂 I better pull my finger out and bug people about sponsorship if I want to match his achievement – if there’s anyone out there reading this who hasn’t donated, please send… Read more →
Note that it’s like real writing, but it’s nice to reach an audience of more than the choir invisible via my blog. They edited the letter a bit for length, and removed the dig at community-minded people who don’t want to contribute to making the community a better place, but it’s basically all there. Yay to me 🙂
That might seem obvious to most Sydney-siders. After all, it’s officially the Sydney to the Gong MS Bike Ride, and the MS Society has always been the main name attached to the ride. Some people forget or don’t appear to notice, however. There was a letter to the SMH, this morning, that pissed me off a bit. Some guy from… Read more →
with spoils of war … to be precise, $30. That’s a long way for such a small amount. Still, it’s a personal achievement to ride there and back. I left Hazelbrook at about 7:30 – I would have gone earlier but Pete wanted to see me off. It took just about an hour and fifteen minutes to get off the… Read more →
he was waiting for food at Glenbrook. Since then, he has done battle with the perils of heat, traffic works (and traffic), and hills. As people would know, the road from Glenbrook to Hazelbrook is almost all up-hill. It’s also obvious that the heat of the day is roughly from 12 to 2. I really suffered over the section from… Read more →
I left an hour later than I should have – on the road by about 7:30. If the hottest time of the day is midday, I reached my goal of getting to the mountains before then. It took about 30 minutes to crawl up the hill, but I just put my head down and kept turning the pedals. The section… Read more →
for your generous donation to our Team. It’d be nice to thank you personally, but you didn’t leave any details so this’ll have to do in its place.
I received the MS Society’s sponsorship pack for the Gong Ride, yesterday. Instead of having to chase them up, like I did last year, it was delivered fairly promptly this time. So… people who want to deal in cash, or who are in the neighbourhood, can now give me money knowing I’m officially a fundraiser for the MS Society and… Read more →
We have now officially raised in excess of one million dollars more than last year’s fundraising total for this event with our 2009 total now sitting at $3,132,780!! This is the most amount ever fundraised in MS Events history! More than half of that excess was raied by the top 100 fundraisers – $539,077 in total – which is a very good… Read more →
The MS Society sent out a newsletter, which basically stated that they wanted to announce the total fundraising as a Christmas present, so I finalised the cash donation situation yesterday and banked the money today. I ended up raising $520 ($165 cash), which makes this the best fund-raising Gong Ride so far (if I recall correctly) – both personally and… Read more →
Danya and I rode around the eastern suburbs today, as another training exercise for the ‘Gong, which is in two weeks time. It was going to be a straightforward loop out to Watson’s Bay, down to La Perouse and back to Marrickville. Unfortunately, Danya got a flat on the climb from Watson’s Bay, and we ended up with a more… Read more →
The MS Society announced that they’re open for business on the ‘Gong for 2009. This year, there are some changes in the way it’s run – 10,000 places and participants have to pledge to try and raise $200 each. They obviously felt that last year’s melee was, well…, a melee and they should therefore take mild steps to try and… Read more →
The ‘Gong Ride was held last Sunday. It was a full-on day with an amazing turnout. Danya and I turned up to the start about half an hour early, hoping to get away before the scheduled 7:30 start-time we’d been allocated; we were shambling along with the mob towards the start banner for almost the entire half-hour. Looking at the… Read more →
I didn’t see anything about this on the news tonight, but I guess that the current Great Depression will keep minds elsewhere in general. Of more pressing concern to me is that fact that all trains are out between Sutherland and Wollongong. Perhaps some bozo did something to cause the train derailment, but it’s more likely that this is due… Read more →
It’s almost that time of year again. On November 2, I’m riding the ‘Gong Ride. It’s the usual 90km option, stopping for lunch in the Royal National Park. My youngest brother, Danya, is also riding and it’s his first ride of such a length; previously he’s only done rides of about 20km, if I recall correctly. Once again, I have… Read more →
