UPDATE: The Perth ride has been postponed until Sunday 1 October. Details here.
TENS of thousands of bike riders from hundreds of towns and cities across the planet will take their classic, retro and custom bikes for a squirt this Sunday — and in the process raise millions of dollars to help the world better manage prostate cancer and men’s mental health issues.
The sixth Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride will include rides in Perth (with 463 registered riders, last time I looked), Busselton (67 riders so far), Karratha (19 riders) and Albany (5).
Further afield, more than 9,000 riders have registered to ride in the USA and almost 4,000 in Italy.
The annual event gives Western Australia’s classic, retro and custom bike crowd a target date to finish their latest bike build, and brings out some of the State’s finest bikes — some old, some new, some whacky and, to be honest, some plug-ugly. Similar terminology can be applied to some riders’ clothing choice on the day, encouraged to be rather dapper.
The event is a lot of fun but the fund-raising component is serious business. Last year, the global DGR effort raised $US3.6 million including more than $100,000 from WA and more than $800,000 from Australia.
Perth rider Bryce Mitchell-D’Raine has gone to greater lengths than most to encourage people to donate to his fund-raising effort this year — he’s giving away a bike.
Bryce and a bunch of friends and supporters built the bike specifically as a DGR charity project. It began life as a well-used and stock standard 1983 Honda XL350R and is now a very cool cafe racer. (You can read more about the build here, more about the DGR here, and see our mostly photographic coverage of last year’s event in Perth here.)
More importantly, you can visit Bryce’s fund-raising page here. Donate $25 and you’ll go in the running to win the bike.
