Cycling for Habitat

by David Clendon

Last Saturday I went to Botany for what I thought would be a ‘routine’ event, speaking to members of the public and saying some nice things about Habitat for Humanity.  I’m always happy to support this group, who do great work helping people into decent affordable homes. They managed to build about 50 homes for New Zealander’s in the last year, quite an achievement for a charitable organisation.

What I found was a rather more interesting (and also more demanding!) event, the brainchild of an enterprising group of AUT students who donated their time and skills to organising the morning as part of their communications degrees.

Posing as a ‘star’ for the morning, alongside Blair Strang, a real star,  I was invited to compete to see what distance I could clock up on an exercycle in blocks of three minutes.  I don’t find an MP’s lifestyle to be especially conducive to maintaining fitness, but  managed to produce at least some reasonable results, although Blair did manage to take the lead (by a modest margin ) in our final ‘contest‘.

The point of all the silliness and panting was to raise awareness of what Habitat does in the community, and of their plan to host a sponsored ‘Bike and Build’ cycle ride from  Auckland to Wellington next year, with proceeds to go toward completing a building project in Wellington.

So if you are keen to ride all or part of the way between our two largest North Island cities, for a good cause, keep an eye on the Habitat website for details.  You have plenty of time to get fit for it if you start soon!