Over 4000km, from coast to coast, eleven school visits, 350 hours on a bike: just a few statistics from the world first quad tandem ride that took place over the last six weeks. The goal? Raising money and awareness for suicide prevention charity Gotcha4Life.
On September 1st the Ride4Life four, Louise, Sonia, Anna and Rach, set off from Scarborough Beach, in Perth, Western Australia. For the next six weeks the women rode their quad tandem bicycle across Australia, having countless conversations with people about mental health.
Their endeavour wasn’t without its challenges. Within the first few days the women started noticing issues with one of the chains on the bike, which caused them to stop approximately 5 times within 10km to adjust it. On the Nullarbor, the women experienced further challenges with the wheel, with spokes flying off, one rim broken, and a hub destroyed. In a phone call with the shop owner of the Streaky Bay bike shop, Rach said he joked the Nullarbor is the Bermuda Triangle for bike wheels. They were able to source a 36-spoke mountain bike wheel from Adelaide, which didn’t match the original 40-spoke wheel, but they were able to make it work.
The team made it to Adelaide, where on a 5K community run they crossed paths with Nedd Brockman, who ran from Perth to Bondi raising awareness for homelessness in 2022. The media team was able to get the women radio and TV appearances, another opportunity to share the core message of the adventure and that of Gotcha4Life: learning mental fitness so no one worries alone.
Reaching Sydney, the logistics team had to work out how to navigate city traffic and arrival into Bondi Beach. The four women arrived beside the Bondi Pavillion to a cheering crowd around 2:30pm AEDST on October 10 – coinciding with World Mental Health Day. When asked how they were feeling post ride, “elated” said Louise. “Stoked, top of the world, top shelf” beamed Anna. “Loving life - everyone live your dreams!” glowed Rach.
“I didn’t go in with any expectation,” said Sonia of what she imagined the journey would hold when they left Scarborough Beach six weeks ago. “Half the adventure was the journey itself. From the terrain, to conditions, to what we were doing that day, who we would connect with. There were so many stops on the side of the road when suddenly we had all these people stopping and that was someone we needed to connect with – we’d get these amazing stories and mini adventures that would come along the way. I was really keen for the journey and it’s been awesome”.
“I had experienced a 17-day ride, so I knew what it would be like physically, but the connection [with] people surprised us the most. The vulnerability of those people – once we shared what we were doing – everyone had a story and connection with the mental health and suicide space,” recalled Louise. “That I think was unexpected for me, to have so many vulnerable conversations – so many men would open up and cry”.
The logistics were a challenge recalls Anna, “there’s 10-12 people to work out things every day.” Navigating the challenges of the road proved helpful: “it was cool because we were talking along the road about mental fitness and resilience, and I feel like we journeyed through that ourselves as a team and grew ourselves in that way – that was so powerful to learn”.
“If I’m being 100% honest it would be the social media side,” said Rach. “You feel like you have to be funny or cool or look like everything is together in the moment. That was a challenge for me.” Rach also didn’t realise she would be thrown into the role of ‘bush mechanic’ with Gary, their support vehicle driver. “That was fun and challenging because we were keeping the wheel together at the back and didn’t want to let anyone down – our first spoke took two hours to fix with a YouTube video,” laughed Rach. After 10 spoke changes, they had the process down to a fine art.
Raising over $110k, the women have enabled Gotcha4Life to visit 11 schools to help kids build mental fitness, a tool that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives. At Bondi the women had two final missions: have the bike kiss the Pacific Ocean, and one last ‘What’s in Anna’s pocket?’ (a fun segment they did on the bike each day). The final object was a vile of water from the Indian Ocean, collected in Perth on their departure. A small signifier, taken from coast to coast, that their journey was now complete.
You can still donate here. Avondale University is proud to have been a major sponsor of Ride4Life; a journey that not only involved three of our alumni, but that aligns with our impact – people serving their world for good.
