Sixty members of youth cycling club Palmer Park Velo, collectively cycled 3210km in 3 hours on Saturday 15th October in a sponsored ride.
The club is raising money for the Zoë Trust, a UK-based charity that aims to improve the lives of some of the poorest children in South Africa. The focus of the sponsored ride was to raise money toward the building of a new orphanage in an area blighted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The new site will be home to 36 vulnerable children.
The original target for the ride was 1800km – 50km for each orphan. But the club’s members rose to the occasion and racked up a fantastic total of 3210 km. The ride was based at Reading’s Palmer Park Velodrome, with riders lapping the 459m track. A number of the club’s members managed to cover 100km,or 218 laps.
Some of the club’s youngest members also covered long distances. For example, Finn Hawkins an Under 6, managed to achieve a whopping 42.5km - against an original target of 15km. The average distance achieved, across all the age groups, was nearly 54km.
The ride wasn’t without incident; a touch of wheels in the fast group brought a number of riders crashing to the ground. Two were forced to abandon the ride - one with a broken collarbone. However Jason Brown bravely remounted and almost made it to his 100km target.
The sponsored ridewas organized by Emily Hogge – a former Palmer Park Velo member now studying Biology at Bath University. Emily was inspired to form the ride after spending her gap year living and working in Ingwavuma, a small rural community in South Africa and home to the orphanage. Emily worked as a teacher in a local school, but spent most evenings and weekends entertaining the children at the orphanage.
Following the ride Emily praised the children’s efforts saying, ‘You’ve all done fantastically well. And with each pedal stroke, you’ve been helping to change the lives of children in South Africa who have almost nothing. This is a great club and you’ve just shown why it is.’
Palmer Park Velo is hoping to raise £3000 towards the cost of building the new orphanage. If you can help with even a small donation, the members of the club would be thrilled. Donations can be made via the Just Giving webpage at www.justgiving.com/palmerparkvelo.
