Hartley Lifecare Ability Cycle Challenge

17 November 2009

CAPT Simon O'Brien can tell you about the pain of riding a bicycle up the steep incline between Jindabyne and Charlottes Pass.

It's one of the highest sealed roads in Australia and he traversed it a year ago for the first time on a bike.

Well, he is going back for more this year – but it's all for a good cause.

CAPT O'Brien is one of a bunch of Defence cylists participating in the Hartley Lifecare Ability Cycle Challenge from Canberra to Charlottes Pass (445km) to raise money for Hartley Lifecare. They've already amassed about $19,000 raised through a variety of fundraisers over the year.

CAPT O'Brien participated in the event last year and has since become a regular volunteer for Hartley events throughout the year. So it did not take a lot of arm-twisting to persuade him to get back in the saddle for this year's event. But he remembers Day 2, the last climb to the summit, as the toughest ride indeed.

Although the event has become much wider than a Defence event and is now the largest single fundraising event of its type in the ACT, with thousands of cyclists participating, it began in 1999 when a team of Defence cyclists rode from Sydney to Canberra.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary this year, a team of Defence riders are riding from Sydney to Canberra on November 25 and 26. On Friday, November 27, the first wave of riders leave on the Hartley proper. The Defence Team then leaves on Saturday, November 28 with the second wave.

Hartley Lifecare is a Canberra-based organisation that has provided accommodation support and respite care to children and adults in the ACT with physical and complex disabilities for more nearly 50 years.