I snuck out of the JDMST EOMM on Saturday night early so that I could go home and hit the sack. 5am on Sunday I was up, packed the car and headed of to Richie’s. From there we rode to Newtown for the start. My hands were killing me from the ride in so I made a little adjustment to the bars (I tilted them back) and that made a HUGE difference.
We met up with Jing and after sitting in the line for 10 minutes we decided to jump the start (we would have been sitting there for at least half an hour otherwise). Like last year there was a major blockage for the first 10km but we were rolling soon enough and that Gong vibe kicked in.
Seeing so many different types of people, of all ages, so many different kinds of bikes and the volunteers yelling out “Thank you so much! Thanks for the support!” brought a massive smile to my face. I’ve always treated the Gong ride more like a race (which it isn’t) and gone solo every time. Richie, Jing and I stuck together as a group all the way until the finish line, which was great fun.
The event raised over 2.6 million dollars for MS and I managed to raise $410 so a huge thanks to everyone who sponsored me.
More pictures and discussion can be found here.