Full-time business owner and part-time charity bike rider with a heart of gold, Trudy Griffiths will be taking part in the Tour de OROC charity ride next month.
The Tour de OROC (Orana Region Outback Challenge) is a 1,400km bike ride over six days that raises funds for Dubbo’s Macquarie Homestay accommodation.
“Being a business owner you try to support and put money back into the community where you can to different organisations.
“This is for a great cause and I’ll also get some personal satisfaction out of it too,” Trudy told The Cobar Weekly.
Trudy decided to take up the challenge as she’s known a number of Cobar residents who have needed to use the accommodation facility when visiting Dubbo for medical services.
She’ll be one of two women in the group of 25 riders who have signed on for this year’s event and also one of two riders in the pack with Cobar connections. (Former Cobar resi-dent, Chris Freeman, who now lives in Mudgee, is also riding.)
Trudy will only be attempting the second half of the ride (as she’s not able to commit to the full six days due to a previous commitment clashing with the start date of the ride).
She plans to join the peloton in Bourke on Day 4 and ride to Cobar, then on Day 5 they ride from Cobar to Warren and on the final day the ride will finish in Dubbo, which is still a hefty distance of 600km that Trudy will cover.
It’s not, however, the first time Trudy has been involved in a challenge of this kind.
“A group of us from Cobar in 2016 did the Wines to Mines ride where we rode from Grif-fith to Cobar.
“On the last day I remember it was about 40 degrees and there was a 30km/h head wind, it was terrible,” Trudy recalled.
She said while the Tour de OROC daily rides will be about the same distance (130-160km), she hopes they will have much better weather on next month’s ride.
With running her business and spending time with the family, Trudy said training for the event has been challenging as it requires a lot of time out on the bike.
To fit it all in, she’s been getting up early and heading out on the bike doing 30km rides, that take about an hour and a half, all before 9am.
And while the early morning views are pretty impressive, Trudy said she is however getting sick of her playlist.
“Ideally it would be great to have some com-pany on my rides.
“I’m trying to con some people into riding with me but I’m not sure if they’ll be up to doing those long distances,” Trudy said.
As part of her training, she’s also going to be doing some 100km rides over the weekends.
Trudy said while it has been a big commit-ment, she’ll be pleased if she can raise some money to help Dubbo Macquarie Homestay and ultimately her own community.—Article compiled by Holly McGuinness, Macleay College journalism student
