With the experience of doing my own charity ride a sum total of one time, perhaps it’s a sign that I was getting too comfortable with doing these when I announced in mid-November that I was going to do another solo charity ride. I felt like I had another in me to do, and when I came across the Movember Foundation campaign and their work to address men’s health issues (specifically, mental health, testicular and prostate cancer), the timing and circumstances seemed just right. Mental health has been quite a concern this year given the impacts of the pandemic, and some high profile deaths of people due to prostate cancer has also recently raised concern.

The Movember campaign centers on November, and given that I had Thanksgiving and Black Friday off work, that weekend would be ideal, but this also would mean that I only had a week’s turnaround time to plan, fundraise and ride.

Given this short amount of time, I set a smaller fundraising goal of $500 — which was still ambitious at the time — and then spent the week fundraising and adapting a route I had saved but had never ridden — a 50-mile roundtrip between two Temple Coffee locations in Fair Oaks and Davis. I included on the route a stop at the Gurdwara in West Sacramento, and at a public art installation called “Subtile“.

Black Friday morning arrived with frigid aplomb and I was standing with my bike nursing a coffee in the parking lot of Temple Coffee in Fair Oaks with over $500 donated from people who stepped up right away. I expected that raising this much money in such a short amount of time and not too long after my last fundraiser would have been a stretch, but clearly there are very generous people out there. Many were family and friends, but a few were new as well.

I was happy that people helped me reach my goal, and all that was left to do was to start pedaling.

Aside from it being a really cold morning and getting a flat tire coming out of Davis, the ride itself went quite smoothly. I missed some turns here and there, but didn’t get too lost. When I arrived back in Fair Oaks four and a half hours later (why did it take so long?), I discovered that a friend donated while I was out riding. This brought the fundraising total to $601 in just over a week’s time — definitely beyond my expectations and this made the ride feel even more successful.

As always, all credit and thanks go to the Divine. Just in time for the Thankgiving holiday, my gratitude to each of the 15 people who once again supported my ride for a charity. Your donations have gone to Movember Foundation to support their programs, services and grants to improve men’s health issues.

Moreover, you also helped close out my charity riding for this year on such a great note. I wasn’t sure I would be able to get much charity riding in this year given the pandemic and shutting down of events, but you supported me in helping these charities during such a difficult year for us all.

Thank you.