Xaver and Ollie’s big bike ride

Cycling for Polio Plus: Xaver and Ollie’s big bike ride

Two young men, a Kiwi and a German, are cycling from North Cape to Bluff to raise money for Rotary’s campaign to end polio.

Xaver Hausner is a 24 year old German student from Bavaria who has spent a year at Victoria University in Wellington as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. He and his best Kiwi mate Ollie Macindoe (23) are both keen cyclists and to mark their year together they wanted to do something memorable.

“We decided on a big bike ride from one end of the country to the other. It’s adventure our way. We wanted to combine the adventure with supporting a good cause. We chose the End Polio Now campaign which Rotary is running worldwide, and thought that we could publicise the cause along the way’, the two guys say.

“Now it is quite a big deal. Rotary Clubs along our route are going to be fundraising for us, as well as helping us out with accommodation and food.

“We’ve got a website and we’ll be blogging each day on our adventures.†(see www.polio.org.nz)

Xaver and Ollie leave Cape Reinga on Wednesday 24 November and are scheduled to be in Bluff on Sunday 16 January 2011. The North Island leg ends in Wellington on 21 December.

The End Polio Now campaign is a worldwide initiative by Rotary International to eliminate the disease in the last four remaining countries where it still occurs - in parts of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

For the last 25 years Rotary has been working with the World Health Organisation and UNESCO to eradicate polio throughout the world, and the campaign has been supported by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for over USD $220 million. (Relevant links are listed below)

The boys’ route takes then from Cape Reinga to Auckland and then through the Bay of Plenty and around the East Cape to Gisborne, and then down the Wairarapa to Wellington arriving just before Christmas. They then head to the South Island and ride down the West Coast to Queenstown and into Southland ending up in Bluff on 16 January.

“It’s a journey of 3358 kilometres, says Francis Wevers, the head of Rotary’s support group for the project, “so we have divided the journey into 250 segments of 13.4 kms, and we are asking our 250 clubs to back the boys with sponsorship of at least $10 a kilometre. Already one club in Rotorua has signed up for $100 per km.

“They’ll be meeting various dignitaries along the way: the Governor General the Rt Hon Sir Anand Satyanand is meeting them and Wellington’s new Mayor Celia Wade Brown, herself a keen cyclist, will ride with the boys into Wellington.â€

“We don’t have a particular dollar figure in mind as a target, but all donations will go directly to the fight against polio, and the donations are effectively doubled by the matching grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,†Mr Wevers said.

The full schedule of their journey with dates and distances is attached. (use a word document)

There is more background information on polio and on the boys’ ride at www.polio.org.nz

Other Useful links:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website http://www.gatesfoundation.org/polio/Pages/default.aspx

Rotary International website http://www.rotary.org/en/ServiceAndFellowship/Polio

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