Get involved

The cyclists will line up at the start with bits already missing, busted and brutalised. Bits of themselves, mind you. Their bikes will be in fine nick.

Wounded servicemen from Britain, Canada and New Zealand will set out from Bluff on October 28 on a journey to Cape Reinga to raise both the profile of personal capability and funds for a separate support organisation so please dig deep and . . . fling your sympathies down that hole for Operation R.I.D.E.

They’re not averse to accepting money for a good cause but ‘‘Pilgrim Bandits don’t do sympathy’’.

So declares the website of a charity established the other side of the world by a group of Special Forces veterans in 2007, and which approached the New Zealand forces to get on board. Challenge accepted.

What New Zealand is about to see is a race, not a pity parade.

Under the rallying cry ‘‘Always a Little Further’’, the stated goal is to push participants who have already endured so much ‘‘to go beyond endurance – to embrace life again and in so doing, inspire others’’.

By thrusting injured men and women into physically and mentally demanding situations that they would not have dreamed possible – long distance kayaking, mountain climbing, trekking across inhospitable terrain – ‘‘self confidence is restored and selfbelief instilled’’.

What they found is soon those who needed help become those who give it.

Raised in Gore then Invercargill, Royal New Zealand Navy Chief Petty Officer Amy Baynes was serving in Afghanistan when she was injured.

Landlocked, mountainous countries aren’t generally known for their naval needs but she’s a medic by training: ‘‘We have the luxury of tapping into all those deployments,’’ she says. ‘‘Everyone needs medics.’’

Since joining up in 1999, she served in Bougainville, the Gulf post-9/11, and Indonesia’s Banda Aceh following the Boxing Day tsunami. Not a lot of physical aid necessary in that one; probably the most useful thing she did was be someone they could talk with. It proved the most difficult, too.

‘‘I don’t talk about it a lot and my family understand the reasons,’’ she says. ‘‘It was the most heart-rending, but the most rewarding.’’

It was in Afghanistan that she suffered – brace yourselves – an awkward fall. Nothing more dramatic than that.

And, for long enough, she was able to tell herself her damaged hip and back really wasn’t such a big deal. But like many people who feel they are getting by with something they can tough out, she didn’t get it checked out that closely.

Over time, she found the mounting intensity of the continuing issues increasingly hard to live with. The moment she most vividly realised she had to face this comes not from the demands of military exertion, but the tasks of domestic motherhood.

‘‘I bent down to pick up a changed nappy from the floor, the hip popped out and I thought, yeah, time for surgery.’’

So now she has an artificial hip but still lives with significant back pain.

Here’s the thing: As she continues to serve at Burnham camp, Baynes has found such challenges to be a massive personal wake-up call.

A call that was amplified, big time, when she represented New Zealand at the Invictus Games; the international event that has so quickly become hugely celebrated; helped along by some artful support. Remember the promotional clip of Barack and Michelle Obama sending pre-games trash-talk to a more understated, reserved but comically unimpressed Queen and Prince Harry?

That sort of backing helped attract widespread attention to Invictus but public imagination was more emphatically captured by the feats of the competitors who, in turn, gained deep rewards themselves.

Baynes competed with distinction; a cycling bronze medallist in 2014 and double silver medallist in 2016.

But far more than that: ‘‘Invictus gave me passion again, and purpose.

‘‘Those initial games opened my eyes to how amazing human beings are overcoming their adversity using sport to give them purpose and help in their rehabilitation.’’

When the Bandit Pilgrims let it be known they wanted to come to New Zealand, Baynes seized the chance to step forward in the hope of helping start something significant in her own country. ‘‘New Zealand needs to see these amazing people, and realise that in every community there are people who have served their countries . . . some may have (obvious) injuries, some may have invisible ones like depression, PTSD, anxiety.

‘‘All are amazing and we as a country need to help support them for the service they have done.’’

Initially, it was going to be just about the race, the challenge, the message embraced by the racers and there for anyone to see if they cared to pay attention.

But the realisation that their efforts might also raise funds for the recently formed Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen Association of New Zealand was compelling. Here was an outfit open to veterans who had recently left the forces, often to become quite isolated having lost the family they’d found in the military.

Through a host of hunting, fishing, outdoorsy activities this association helps to keep them engaged through the life change. It’s national co-ordinator, Dave Benfell, is himself a wounded veteran and in the New Zealand team.

A bit of support from this group from the rest of the racing wounded seemed perfectly appropriate.

The bikes to be used on Operation R.I.D.E are specially made tandems. The rear rider physically able to use foot pedals, the front rider using hands.

The contingent of 36 will go at it for 19 days, 160 kilometres each day, with allowance for a few extra days for things to have gone wrong.

The Returned Services Associations of the nation stand ready to help.

How competitive will it be? Baynes, who’s put 10 months into organising the event, lightly points out that the winning team will host the next event, so if the New Zealand team suffers a crucial puncture at the finish line it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Finishing as a team will be what matters, she says.

The New Zealand team captained by Baynes also comprises:

Dave Benfell (Tauranga) – former infantry New Zealand Army and British paratrooper. Lower limb impairment from paratroop injury from plane jump.

Bruce Blackburn (Christchurch) – former infantry New Zealand Army. Multiple strokes and limb impairment, chronic fatigue and PTSD.

Bruce Blaikie (Wellington) – former intelligence, New Zealand Army. PTSD

Gary Brandon (Taupo) – former infantry New Zealand Army. Amputated lower limb due to land mine in Iraq.

For her part, Baynes is particularly looking forward to passage through her hometown territory. She’s no stranger to support from the Gore RSA in particular – it sponsored her bike for Invictus – and it’s home to her parents, Wendy and Ed Plaisted, sister Rachel Hardy, and other family. There’s a GiveALittle page: givealittle.co.nz/cause/operationride-2018

Baynes’ Facebook page will blog the event.

The Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen’s Association of New Zealand webpage: ssaanz.co.nz