#YourTomorrowNeedsYou - Tour de Buffalo 2024

Tour de Buffalo.

10th to the 17th November.

Melbourne to Brisbane.

2,100kms.

21,000m of elevation.

This has been a dream of mine for nearly 4 years.  I had planned on riding Brisbane to Melbourne back in 2021.  Due to the restrictions of the time, I was unable to achieve this.  

After the success of last year, I personally needed a new adventure to focus on.  And just like all of my crazy cycling adventures, I want this one to be something that people can come along for the adventure.  

It’s a big goal.  No doubts about it.  But why not?  Everything that I do is about questioning what I’m capable of.  It’s about asking others to question what they’re capable of.  Sure, not everyone can or wants to do the stuff I do and that’s fine.  But why not use what I’m doing to set your own goals. 

What I do on the bike is to encourage people to dream and dream big for them.  We are all capable of so much more than what we give ourselves credit for.  Riding from Melb to Bris in 8 days - sure that’s going to be a big ask.  But why the hell not give it a try?  And it will definitely need me to make withdrawals from my own #mentalwealthaccount

And at its essence, this is what YTNY is -  community that encourages people to dream, dream big, and never allow the hurdles of life to stop them from trying to achieve these.  It’s about recognizing that everything we’ve done in life, everything we’ve achieved or overcome has a place in our memory.  A special place called #mentalwealthaccount  

YTNY is also about changing the way we talk or reference mental health.  Everyone of us has mental health.  Just like everyone of us has physical health.  They’re both parts of what makes up our health system.  Not all us have or have had or suffer from a mental illness.  YTNY is about being proactive on maintaining a healthy mental health position.  Building the tools that we need to navigate life from a mental health perspective.  Just like eating well, being active etc are parts of maintaining our physical health, making deposits into your mental wealth account, i believe are important for maintaining our mental health.  Particularly when the pressure of life mounts up and people develop feelings of anxiety or depression.

YTNY is about recognizing that we all have mental health.  And our mental health is not static.  If moves just as our physical health moves from feeling great to feeling shite.  So too does our mental health.

This ride, is going to be an 8 day intensive of just how intertwined our mental and physical health is.  I’m sure that there are going to be days, maybe even hours, where I go from feeling great physically to feeling crap; to feeling like I’m smashing it to feeling like throwing Larry (dont worry Larry, that’ll never happen…maybe).  And it’s going to take all of my resilience and that of my support crew to keep me going.  It’s going to take me being honest with them when the dark clouds of pain, physically and mentally kick in.  So, yep, this ride is going to be a week long intensive of life.