The Crohn’s Crusaders seed was planted in Damian’s mind when he completed a solo coast-to-coast bicycle tour from Boston to Vancouver in North America in 2005. While he was spending countless hours in the saddle cycling through middle-American cornfields, national parks, snow capped mountains, never-ending highways and various wide open spaces he was contemplating how he would make his next trip bigger and better.
He had never ridden two days in a row prior to attempting his coast-to-coast tour so, although he was keen to raise awareness and funds for a cause, he was reluctant to make a public commitment to it just in case he found that long distance cycling was not for him.
After Damian had conquered the Rocky Mountains and was halfway through the Cascade Mountains a realisation dawned on him that he was definitely capable of completing the course and really should have been doing all of this for a cause. It was during a long sweeping descent in the Cascades with the wind on his face and the smell of late autumn pine forest in the air that Damian decided he would try the impossible and make an attempt on the Tour de France course! And, this time he would do it for a cause that he was passionate about.
The Tour de France route, that varies its course each year, is world renowned as being home to the most gruelling sporting event in the world and, further to this, home to the most finely tuned, well conditioned athletes in the world - not your everyday Melbourne man who does a bit of recreational cycling!
However, the more difficult and unrealistic the attempt seems the more interest it will raise in whether he can complete his goal. This leads to an extraordinary opportunity for a worthy cause to leverage off the interest in the project.
The attempt will be no easy task as the pace of Damian’s 2005 American tour was leisurely at best and the distances covered were nowhere near as long as the Tour de France route. The most ground Damian covered in one day during the American tour was 180km. There are typically 17 stages over 160km (or 100 miles) in the 20 stages of the Tour de France route with 6 stages over 200km.
Damian wants to raise awareness and funds to contribute towards research into Crohn’s Disease as the causes for this disease are not yet known and there is no cure. For the majority, a diagnosis is not a death sentence but the symptoms have an enormous impact on the quality of life of sufferers. In the more severe cases sufferers are too unwell to continue work or school and require expensive treatments to manage their symptoms. There is a whole lot more about Crohn’s and Colitis on the About Crohn’s page.
The two main goals of the Crohn’s Crusaders project are:
- Raise awareness of Crohn’s Disease among the general public in Australia and internationally by registering 10,000 people to follow the progress of the project via occasional e-mail updates and via the Crohn’s Crusaders website
- Raise funds for Crohn’s Disease research (a minimum of $100,000AUD)
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