Adventist women take on world-first cycling challenge
Riding for life … the four women leave on September 1 on their long ride across Australia.
Four Adventist women are aiming to ride across Australia on a quad tandem bike—the only one of its kind in the country—in what will be a world first.
The group will launch from Perth on September 1 and expect to reach Sydney by October 10, covering more than 4000 kilometres over six weeks and averaging 120 kilometres a day. Their goal is to raise $500,000 for suicide prevention in support of Gotcha4Life, an organisation committed to improving mental fitness and suicide prevention for Australians.
“It’s a pretty wild idea,” shared team member Anna Lindbeck in an interview with Record Live. She will ride alongside her sister Rachel Beaden, Sonia Allum and Louise Ginn. Anna said she is feeling “pretty nervous but excited”.
The riders have chosen the cause intentionally. “The fact that nine Australians commit suicide every day . . . it is something impacting our society and it’s something that we should care about,” Anna said. “All four of us are Christians and we just have a strong belief that we are made in the image of God, that we are all deeply valuable and the message of God is that He wants us all to have life and life more abundantly.”
Their method of transport is the first official quad tandem bike in Australia, which they sourced second-hand from Canada.
While the physical demands will be immense, Anna believes mental fitness will be the greater challenge. “I would argue it’s even more important,” she said. “Physically it will be super challenging but quite a few of us have done endurance kind of things before and we’ve been training pretty hard . . . but the actual keeping on going, head down when it’s hard, when you’ve got a head wind, when it’s raining . . . that mental strength and fortitude is really what’s going to get you going.
“Mental fortitude is super crucial and I think all four of us have demonstrated that quite a lot in the past and so I think that will get us through.”
Looking ahead, Anna said she is excited about “just seeing amazing Australia at a very slow pace, looking out at the countryside and taking it all in—the deserts, the mountains, the coast. I’m excited for team bonding . . . as we journey through this intense thing together. I’m excited to actually learn and grow from that too.”
For ride updates follow @rideforlife_aus on Instagram.