People travelled from as far as Albury-Wodonga, St George, Sydney, Lismore and Coffs Harbour for the ride to help raise awareness and funds for Down Syndrome New South Wales. 

The ride raised $1420, which will go towards Team Inverell in their fundraising effort for the upcoming Scrapheap Adventure Ride. 

Team Inverell coordinator Col Meacham said the event was very well received. 

“We saw a big range (of bikes) from a little 175 Yamaha to a 990cc adventure bike,” Meacham said. 

“There were no accidents, no problems and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves,” he added. 

Due to the tough economic climate, Meacham said this year has been more about raising awareness than funds and said so far it seems to be working. 

“All of the long distance people who were involved have come off their own back and I think that shows the awareness program is working ok,” he said. 

“We’ve been purposely pushing the awareness aspect and if that attracts more sponsorship, all well and good.

“We won’t raise as much as we have in previous years, but that doesn’t mean people can’t donate.” 

Meacham said Team Inverell’s preparation for the ‘Back of Bourke” Scrapheap Adventure Ride is also coming along well. 

The next fundraising event will be a garage sale on February 23, followed by a movie night at the Inverell Cinema on March 7 and then a dinner the night before they leave. 

Meacham said they wanted to say a big thanks to their sponsors, Vince Strang from Vince Strang Motorcycles, ‘Turbo’ Turner from Inverell Motorcycles, Col Thompson from the Oxford Hotel and Ross Worgan from Diesel Equip. 

If you would like to sponsor team Inverell, you can visit the Scrapheap Adventure Ride website on http://scrapheap.gofundraise.com.au.