I'm fundraising for the Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter
What I will be doing:
My name is Keith Hobson and I am 77 years old.
In 2022 I rode from Cape Reinga to Bluff as part of Tour Aotearoa also known as TA. This was followed in 2023 when I rode from the East Cape Lighthouse near Te Araroa to Cape Egmont, near New Plymouth. This ride is known as the Kopiko Aotearoa.
In 2025, on the 3rd of March, I began my Sounds 2 Sounds ride. A ride that is 1500 km long and starts at Ship Cove which is the start of the Queen Charlotte track and finishes in Milford Sound.
I aimed to complete the ride in 18 days, climbing 14,890 metres cumulatively on mostly back roads, which is the equivalent of climbing Mt Everest about 1 ½ times.
Despite my training, research, and prior experience with endurance riding events, I unfortunately had to discontinue the ride due to injury. I covered 91 km and climbed 1330 metres over the day, on an extreme track during extremely hot weather.
It was a difficult call to stop to avoid further serious injury, especially after the months and months of training I put in to compete in this challenge. Although I am disappointed that I had to pull out of this event, I have gained valuable insights into improvements and adaptions that will assist me in completing this event this time round. Thank you to all the wonderful people who supported my last fundraiser for the Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter.
This year, I aim to complete the ride in 19 days, and am determined to finish what I started in 2025.
I want to do this because:
The trip is fully self-supporting meaning that I need to carry everything I need on my bike. This includes clothing, water, food, medication and repair tools.
"I want to show people that age isn't a barrier, it's all up in the top six inches" - Keith.
People ask me why I am doing it. Well, I guess the answer is that I want to step outside my comfort zone and see what I can really achieve by pushing my body to its limits and beyond.
The challenges on this journey are very different to the TA and the Kopiko and in my opinion a lot harder because of the hill work, coping with thirst due to the high temperatures that we will experience, monitoring the food intake and because of the sparsity of settlements along the way carrying food will also be an issue.
Also, because a lot of the riding will be sub alpine, we have to be prepared for a variety of climatic conditions including rain, snow, wind and cold as well as intense heat.
These events are called brevets and there are conditions which you need to meet. $100 has to be donated to a charity of your choice, you have to pay a fee to offset your carbon footprint that you make in getting to the event. Finally, you have to carry a tracker so that you can be followed in real time. If you want to ride outside the brevet, you are not obliged to follow the same conditions.
About this service: The Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter is a fully-fledged air emergency medical service that services the whole of the Waikato region, including the Coromandel and the King Country. It brings life-saving equipment and rescue personnel directly to patients, 24/7, 365 days a year, and is staffed by an amazing & experienced crew of Critical Care Flight Paramedics (CCFP), Air Crew Officers and Pilots. Donations from fundraising go towards the operational costs, which helps ensure the rescue helicopter can continue to carry out life-saving missions, whenever and wherever needed.
