24hr Mountain Bike Charity Ride

This weekend was our second charity ride and it was time to entertain the mountain bikers as last year's ride was a road event.

We initially thought we will do one event charity event a year and with our last one being October we still had a whole year to plan but after we learned about Cailyn we decided to do a charity ride as soon as possible.

Cailyn was born deaf and can't hear or speak but the good news is she will be able to hear again if she can get a cochlear implant. She's been for all the tests and she is suitable for the implant but she doesn't have any medical aid and her mother is a single parent who is doing everything possible to raise the R300 000($43 000) to do the surgery but really struggles.

With the help of the Highveld Mall and the local cycling club we arranged a 24 hour Mountain bike ride starting at the Mall and going through the veld behind the mall. In total one lap was just over 5km long and you could ride at your own pace. We had a great turnout of just under 60 riders who each paid a R100 entry fee.

The mall provided an area where the bikers could camp and we received some sponsors to supply meat, pap and all the things you need for a BBQ.

The ride started at 12 noon on Saturday and we asked Cailyn to cut the start ribbon and it ended today with prize giving at 1pm. We had some prize money for the first three places in the four different categories. The categories were one, two, three and four man teams.

Most of the riders who received prize money gave it back as a donation towards the fund.

We also had some spot prizes again and two prizes for the raffle. We could rely on Marco from Cycle Tech again who gave us a mountain bike for the raffle and Incredible Connection gave us a Notebook.

At prize giving the biker who won did just over 450km in the 24hours and we had to give a special prize to one cyclist who didn't do the most kilometers but was on his bike for 21 out of the 24hours.

We are still far from reaching the R300k we need for Cailyn to have the surgery and we're waiting for some pledges received but after a quick count it looks like we raised just short of R40k. Cailyn already have R60k in her trust and with our effort the trust is now at R100k, just another two thirds to go.