Wheels of Addis

I don’t have a bike.

I don’t have a bike and I’m about to begin the biggest two-wheeled adventure of my life. It’s finally agreed - it’s signed, sealed and delivered - come February 2010, I’m going to be cycling across Ethiopia. Together with Wheels of Gimbie, I have an exciting few months of planning, preparation, training - and no doubt cycling through the rain - ahead.

And why are we doing this? Our goal is to raise money and awareness for Maternity Worldwide - a charity that seeks to reduce the number of women who die or are injured in childbirth in developing countries. We will be biking from one end of the country to the other to visit a clinic in Gimbie, where the money we raise will be put to good use. Just to put this in perspective - each year, 585,000 women worldwide die in pregnancy. That’s one woman every minute. 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries. And in Ethiopia, that’s 1 in 14 women - in fact, in some parts it can be as high as 1 in 7 women.

So here we go. We can’t wait to get started. We hope you’ll follow us on our journey and we hope you’ll support us.

But first things first… I’ve got to get a bike!