Ride It Out!

Team fundraiser • 4 members • CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably)

Story

RIDE IT OUT!

How is it possible that we all know someone who has tragically taken their own life?

As a society, we have unwittingly slept-walked into this generation’s biggest killer of middle-aged men. A killer of epic proportions, with over 125 suicides in the UK EVERY WEEK, of which 75% ARE MEN!

CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) exists to change this.

Fielding over 150,000 calls last year…spending more than 2.5 million minutes providing people with hope…listening, chatting and helping people to SEE A WAY FORWARD.

What we're doing...

So what are we doing to justify your support? Embarrassingly and apologetically, we’re not paddling up the Amazon using a teaspoon, or climbing Kilimanjaro in flip-flops, although we have nothing but complete and utter admiration for those that do! We’re simply 4 blokes, biking around the UK, to RIDE IT OUT.

Two experienced, and two not-so (one of us passed our test in March!), mates, plan to complete 1,800 miles in 8 days from 3rd to 10th June. Funding 100% of the trip ourselves to ensure every penny donated goes directly to help friends, relatives, neighbours, colleagues, and fellow human beings who really need CALM's help.

Why Ride it Out?

We’re not only riding to raise money for CALM but also because it supports the mounting evidence that riding a bike, has significant health benefits (surprising, considering how hard some of us will be concentrating!!!).

It gives your mind a chance to relax, an opportunity to take a breath, decompress, and helps us to release our superhuman “happy hormone”, dopamine – how could you say no to some of that!!!

Whether for your own headspace or to enjoy the headspace of others, riding gifts a sense of belonging, community, togetherness, kindness, banter, and most importantly, FUN!!!

The sensory overload of the elements, the vistas, the smells, and of course, the roar, makes you smile, feel happy, excited, exhilarated, and focused…the key to all our well-being.

So there you have it. There’s our pitch. If you know us personally or don’t know us at all, please don’t judge the challenge, judge the sentiment. An inexcusably large number of people, predominantly men, are taking their own lives…with the added tragedy that every suicide directly affects 135 people…but a donation from a wonderful human being such as yourselves, could provide a friendly ear, an opportunity to be vulnerable, to someone in dire need, before taking the irreversible decision of ending their lives. If we help save just one life all this will have been worth it.

Stand with us...

We are honoured and humbled to be taking on this challenge in aid of CALM, and hope, if you agree with our sentiment, or have experienced the lasting effects of suicide, you can unite with us and donate.