Habitat for Humanity of Durham recently completed the seventh year of their annual fundraising event, the Halloween 100, sending local participants on a 31-, 62-, or 100-mile ride through Durham to support the organization’s home-building projects. Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit organization that seeks to end homelessness by providing affordable housing for those in need. Now, 34 years since its founding, the organization has a presence in approximately 90 countries and has provided affordable housing to more than 1.75 million people.
Founded in 1985, the Durham affiliate of Habitat has built over 200 homes in the community.
While many of us were sleeping during the start of the early Saturday morning ride, bike enthusiast and DesignHammer Partner Robert Weeks was donating his time and energy to riding again and raising money for our local Habitat.
How many years have you been participating in the Habitat for Humanity Halloween Ride?
Robert: This was my fifth year participating. I didn’t think I’d do it again after the first year, though. That year the course earned the nickname the “Hill-o-ween 100” and was much harder than I had anticipated. Thankfully the great folks at Habitat work on making the course better every year.
What got me coming back after that first year was a phone call from Roxanne at Habitat telling me I had been the top fundraiser for the event that year. I had raised a little over $500 and was sure she had made a mistake, but she said there was no mistake and invited me to join their planning committee for the next year’s ride.
Over the past few years, with the help of some very generous donors I’ve been able to raise around $1,000 in donations for each ride. Knowing I can do this one simple thing and raise that kind of money makes it an easy decision whether I should ride each year. These fundraising rides also give me a chance to try to set a good example for my children. My oldest son used to come to the planning meetings with me when he was four and now we’re looking forward to him possibly riding with me next year.
What attracted you to Habitat for Humanity?
Robert: For me, the Habitat for Humanity story is a story of incredible faith and love. It is one of a few current-day examples I know of where people acted totally on faith and changed the world in doing so. I feel it’s a privilege to be able to contribute in my small way to the work done by this great organization.
Do you do anything to prepare for the 50k ride?
Robert: In general I try to ride my bike to work three days a week. It’s about nine miles each way. Unfortunately this year I didn’t get to do that as much as I would have liked. A month or two before the event I add in some longer rides on the weekends for good measure.
How did the ride go this year?
Robert: Saturday started off a little rough. Our dog woke me up at 3am and I wasn’t able to go back to sleep before I had to get up and get ready for the ride. Luckily the weather was beautiful and the slight chill in the air and a lot of coffee helped keep me awake. About two-thirds of the way through the ride, I noticed that my chain kept skipping out of gear, but couldn’t find the cause of the problem. Once I finished the ride I saw that a link in my chain had broken on one side. Luckily the other side of the link held together long enough for me to finish the ride. Seeing my family waiting for me at the finish line was the perfect finish to a really nice ride.
50k is a long ride, how do you stay mentally in it?
Robert: I actually enjoy it. The overall ride took close to three hours, but that includes a rest stop, so total peddling time was about two and a half hours. I don’t know if I could keep it together for the longer rides, but maybe I’ll give it a try one of these years.
When/how did you get into bike riding?
Robert: I’ve been biking since I was a little kid. I grew up in one of those places where a kid could safely ride their bike to school. When I was in high school I started hanging out at the local bike shop and worked on bikes. Later I lived in NYC, where biking and walking were my main modes of transportation, but that changed once I moved to North Carolina. About six years ago, I decided to start riding to work for the exercise and then learned about the Habitat rides soon after. Once I started riding here, I found out what a great and vibrant cycling community Durham has.
How successful was Habitat’s Halloween ride this year?
Robert: The event has had tremendous growth since the first year of the ride. In its first year, the ride raised $1,500 with 225 riders. This year the event managed to raise more than $65,000 with approximately 800 riders participating and hopefully we’ll see even greater success next year. Habitat is still taking donations for this year as they have yet to meet their fundraising goals, so I would encourage anyone who is interested to please donate on my fundraising page or through the Habitat for Humanity of Durham website.
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