July, 2010

Le Tour de Gibb River Road

While the worlds attention focuses on the famous Le Tour de France, Royal Life Saving WA is proud to be the beneficiaries of an (maybe) equally gruelling bike race The Annual Cable Beach Club Gibb River Road Mountain Bike Challenge.

The legendary Gibb River Road is not normally a place where you would expect to find cyclists but once a year the dusty trail is home to this now infamous team bike relay event.

From 23-27 May 420 people from all over the country participated, with 374 riders and 46 hard working volunteers forming 67 teams. Three solo teams and one crazy lone rider also took part in the challenge which is primarily a fundraising event for many local and worldwide charities.

Team Rawring Forties have once again showed their winning form from previous years, not that there are any winners, after all its a challenge. They completed the 650km journey in a record time of 19 hours 57 minutes beating the next team by 11 minutes and raising a record $25,000 for Royal Life Saving WA.  In 2009, Team Rawring Forties raised $15,000 for Royal Life Saving WA.

The team of six are all keen cyclists and prevail from all over the state with two living in Perth, three from Karratha and one from Newman. "We are fortunate that one team member from Team Rawring Forties works for BHP Billiton in Newman, and can leverage BHP through its Matched Giving Program, where they will match employees fundraising efforts.

Royal Life Saving Society WA would like to thank Team Rawring Forties and thank all of their valuable sponsors for 2010, including BHP Billiton, McLaren Car Hire, MM Electrical Merchandising, Cape Range Electrical and the KI Group.

BHP Billiton is RLSSWAs Principle Community Partner.

Photo: RLSSWA Executive Director Alex McKenzie and Rawring Forties Team Captain Terry Scott

 

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