Cops to hit the road – from Sydney to Surfers

Five Police Association members are about to sacrifice more than just their own time to take a gruelling interstate bike ride.

Few would pay to spend eight days’ annual leave out in the elements, cycling 1,100km up a bitumen highway, as giant, fast-moving rigs whoosh past. But five determined SA cops would – for charity.

Adam Serafini, Wally Conte, Damien Eichner, Jake Stubing, Joel Preston and Derek Hasel (public servant) expect to pedal into Surfers Paradise on May 8, after a gruelling ride up the Pacific Hwy from Sydney.

Between Sydney and Surfers, they will cover around 135km per day, and stop overnight in Newcastle, Forster, Port Macquarie, Macksville, Grafton, Evans Head and Byron Bay.

But, as the time to cycle away from the Harbour City on May 1 draws near, the team continues to prepare under a brutal training regime. Its members ride as many as 700km per week in their time off work, along the SA coastline, and through the Adelaide Hills and suburbs.

By the end of some weeks, they have cycled farther than the average motorist might have driven his or her car in a month.

Chief organizer, Adam Serafini, concedes that, for their endless physical input – as full-time policemen with families – “most people think we’re crazy”.

Participants in the charity ride (from left): Jake Stubing (STAR Group), Detective Wally Conte (Child Exploitation Investigation Section), Damien Eichner (STAR Group) and Detective Adam Serafini (Australian Crime Commission).

“You don’t understand it unless you’re a cyclist,” he says. “I don’t think people really understand the enjoyment that you get out of it, especially when they hear about the kilometres we’re doing.”

The officers organized the ride as a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation of Australia, and hope to bring in as much as $15,000. Each rider is responsible to secure sponsorship from the business sector to the tune of around $1,500.

And members of the team have held raffles, as well as weekend sausage sizzles at hardware stores.

The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation won the right to the proceeds of the ride at the insistence of Detective Wally Conte. His wife is a type 1 diabetes sufferer; and, as the disease comes with genetic implications, the couple’s five-year-old daughter could herself become a sufferer in later life.

“I knew there was a research foundation happening, and that it had made quite a lot of progress and was close to a cure,” says Conte. “I thought: ‘If I can help out, it would be great to see some sort of vaccination developed’.

“I was willing to ride the 1,100km over eight days and go through all the pain if it was for the right cause, and I couldn’t think of a better cause.”

Leaving their families behind, and using annual leave to take part in the ride, the officers will fly to Sydney and begin pedalling from Manly. With four other riders, from outside the police force, plus a support man in a van, the entire team will consist of 11.

“He (the support man) travels behind us to protect us from being hit from behind by traffic, plus he carries all our equipment,” says Serafini.

“There are 11 ferry crossings along the way; and we’re unprotected from the wind and environmental elements. Those factors will be the greatest challenge: headwinds and the weather conditions.

“Up there, it gets a bit cooler in May; and there’s a lot of rolling terrain, but we’ll all do it without any problems.”

After the ride winds up in Surfers Paradise, the riders will catch a flight home from Brisbane. And, from their own pockets, they will cover the cost of their airfare, accommodation, food, equipment, fuel (for the support van), and bike maintenance.

Serafini expects each rider will have to fork out as much as $1,000.

For five of the riders, the event comes just two years after they took part in a charity ride from Melbourne to Adelaide, for the RAH Trauma Unit. The unit’s chief, Dr Bill Griggs, outlined a wish list of equipment, for which the then team of riders raised more than $23,000.

So what motivates a group of cops to give up their time and hard-earned cash to raise money for a cause? Says Serafini: “I think it’s just because we’ve worked in the community-service area for so long that you relate to a lot of those things.

“The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and police have an affinity with helping out kids as much as they can; and this is a particularly good cause.”

For his charity-minded, cycling-enthusiast mates, and himself, Serafini has even begun to speak of future charity rides. “Some we’ve looked at doing are to completely circumnavigate Tasmania,” he says.

“We also looked at New Zealand and, maybe, a ride through Europe, but they’re a long way down the track. Get over this ride first.”

The schedule

Day 1: Manly to Newcastle (132km)

Day 2: Newcastle to Forster (158km)

Day 3: Forster to Port Macquarie (119km)

Day 4: Port Macquarie to Macksville (124km)

Day 5: Macksville to Grafton (150km)

Day 6: Grafton to Evans Head (135km)

Day 7: Evans Head to Byron Bay (72km)

Day 8: Byron Bay to Surfers Paradise (120km)