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Amazing Fat (bike) Kid from New Zealand

photos courtesy of Mac's Mission

photos courtesy of Mac’s Mission

Kelvin Arthur from Massey University gave us the ‘heads up’ about a 10 year old boy, named Mac, and his dad riding the length of the North Island of NZ (about 1300km/800+ miles) on their Pugsleys to raise money for St Johns. St. Johns is the ambulance and first aid service in NZ.  About a year ago Mac came home from a St John Youth Program and wanted to do something to raise money for St John. He decided he wanted to do a cycle tour.

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After a lot of thought, he decided to ride from the top to the bottom of New Zealand. His Dad gave Mac the Kennett Brothers book “Classic New Zealand Cycle Trails” to pick out a few backcountry trails to hit along the way. In the back of the book was the “Ultimate Ride” a tour that linked many of the cycle trails into one long tour.  They worked out a route from Cape Reinga to Wellington that was approximately 1300 km, which Mac thought was a big enough adventure, to be worthy of some sponsorship.

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Mac is one motivated and determined young man. He’s no stranger to long rides and cycle touring and has has been doing long multi-day rides since he was 7 years old. Mac loves his fat-bike. Their plan was to leave Cape Reinga on March 6 and finish on the steps of the NZ Parliament on March 29th. The ride is completely self supported so they’ll be carrying all of their own gear…tent, clothing and food etc. They plan to camp at DOC campgrounds and other campsites as they tour down across the North Island. You can follow along with Mac’s Mission on his facebook page here – https://www.facebook.com/macsbigmission

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Mac is trying to raise $5000 dollars and he’s well on his way to hitting that goal. If you’d like to help Mac reach his fundraising goal, you can make a donation on his Everyday Hero page at https://give.everydayhero.com/nz/mac-s-mission

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4 Responses to Amazing Fat (bike) Kid from New Zealand

  1. Craig Madsen March 19, 2014 at 4:30 pm #

    Hi Gomez, thanks for running this piece about my son, great appreciated!
    Not sure if you realised we actually met a couple of weeks ago at Frostbike, outside in the evening I was the guy from NZ taking photos.
    once again thanks Gomez and big thanks to Kelvin for passing it on. Regards Craig

    • Gomez March 19, 2014 at 4:42 pm #

      Craig! That’s pretty amazing! What a small world! Thanks for telling me, because I had no idea that this was your son! Very Cool!

  2. Southwest Backcountry March 23, 2014 at 11:34 am #

    Craig, great parenting!

    Gomez, great share.

    We’ll share it our our Facebook page, Southwest Backcountry. Several reasons this is important: kids explore the world outside of their neighborhood, parents spending quality time with kids, developing a sense of doing something for a cause. Very cool.

  3. Anna lowe - Dallas October 20, 2021 at 4:17 pm #

    i think this was a great idea and it must have helped st Johns

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