The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done...

OK. I will admit it. I didn’t finish the 2,500km I said I would. Am I disappointed? Yes and no.

Lets rewind the clock a little to the beginning of the year when I decided to do this crazy thing called the “Hardcore Postie Bike Challenge”.

“So, George has come up with this Postie Bike ride thing,” laughed Daniel. “I dunno, but it sounds like a laugh…”

“Yeh, totally,” I reply. “Lets do it!”

And there, my friends, was my first mistake. Committing to something I didn’t even know about. But hey, it sounded fun – riding a Postie bike into the country. If anyone has seen The Long Way Around, you would know what I’m talking about. Just think adventure – what boy wouldn’t want an adventure?

As the weeks and months passed, the adventure was looming. We set ourselves a target of $3,000 to raise for MS and it was time to go get some riding gear.

We packed waay too much gear

Glenn is a shop assistant at MCA (Motor Cycle Accessories) in Auburn NSW. He helped us buy the right gear and just by luck, he happened to have also committed to the same ride we were doing. Well half of it…

Glenn has done quite a few Postie bike rides, and this is when alarm bells should have started ringing in my head. He was putting his Postie in his van and driving down to the Victorian High Country, which is where the official ride was taking place. We had decided to ride down there from the Blue Mountains, which we thought would take two days.

“These guys [who organised the ride] are hardcore man,” Glenn would tell us. “They are basically a bunch of farmers looking for some thrills so you guys are in for a something.”

With some new riding gear, we walked away not even thinking of the troubles we might run into. But boy were we wrong.

Fully Loaded.

The last thing I should have thought about before leaving on this trip was the fact that I hadn’t ridden a motorbike for at least three years prior to the trip starting. But hey, it’s a Postie bike right? And my lack of skills showed as soon as I left the Blue Mountains that cold and rainy morning.

Riding up a residential street, I was wobbling left and right trying to keep myself upright. I thought I was going to die then and there! We would later realise that being city folk, we had packed way too much luggage, and all that extra weight over the front handle bars made the bikes harder to ride than a unicycle over a tightrope. Even the most experienced of us was having trouble.

The Mountainside was beautiful.

From there it just went downhill. Just as I was getting used to the bike, I would stack it. In fact, I stacked it three times in the first four hours of riding. It wasn’t the most proud moment of my life.

Now with a limp, we pushed on and without much planning things turned from bad to worse. We had planned the first two days to be some “easy” riding, but with a failed GPS, we ended up getting lost. We planned on riding 450km on the first day, but ended up riding closer to 650. Then it got dark and the road turned into dirt.

Once the GPS failed on us, we reverted to the old school way of things.

Riding in the dark isn’t the smartest thing, especially out in the bush. I can be proud to say that I survived this leg of the trip. Having witnessed a van hit a wombat right next to us was a big wake up call on just how stupid it was for us to be riding that late at night through bushland.

Dirt and bush... not my favourite roads.

Wombats are small but solid, and even at 40km/h, hitting one would surely put us in hospital. Adding to that, my headlights would dim every time I used the brakes so it was hard to see more than 10m ahead of me. Oh, did I mention I had never ridden on dirt before?

In the end, we made it. We rode 16 hours straight, and I had never been in so much pain in my life. Bruised and battered, I woke up the next morning not able to walk properly. It seemed that my body had been fuelled on adrenaline, and the next morning, the toll on my body from crashing my bike three times (I had flipped over the handle bars at 40km/h on gravel), it was obvious I couldn’t continue.

Pitstop for fuel at Mt Hotham.

The funny part about all of this was that we still went to our destination to meet up with the rest of the Posties, gathering together in Carboor VIC. What we went through was definitely hard, but what these guys get up to is downright unbelievable.

Glenn was right, hardcore didn’t even measure up what these guys were wanting to do. Crossing rivers at temperatures close to zero. Pushing the bikes up mountainsides that are too steep to ride. Then, coming back down the mountains on tiny dirt trails with cliff face on one side, and a 2,000m drop on the other.

The collection of Postie Bikes in Dargo VIC.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to do what I said I would. I’m normally a man of my word, and when I commit to something, I always follow through. But committing to this trip was a little silly given my experience, and I definitely didn’t want to die.

Many others pulled out, some with broken legs and collarbones. I would have died, that is a guarantee!

Some of the colours of the country are just stunning.

But I definitely don’t regret the trip. I saw some amazing countryside – Australia truly is a beautiful place. I met some crazy people and I endured a challenge, one that will stay up there for a while at least.

So on an endnote, Printer Workz managed to raise over $4,000 for the cause, and together with our group of four, we raised over $6,000. So judging from your response, it seems that it was only me who thought I would have it easy…

You can check out photos from the trip at our Flickr page.

We Need Your Help Raising Money for MS!

In early April, we have decided to do something completely and utterly silly - I'm going to ride a Postie Bike from the Blue Mountains to Mt Buffalo and back. I'll be covering around 2,500kms, and it's going to take around 8 days. Without a shower...

Why? Well it's actually something many people do, and we are doing it to raise money for MS Australia. MS is basically a disease that affects the central nervous system which can lead to an incapability of living for yourself. Approximately 18,000 Aussies have it at the moment.

So while my journey is going to be tough, rough and definitely uncomfortable, it will be nothing compared to what MS sufferers go through.

We want to raise around $3,000. $1 from every toner cartridge we sell in March will go towards this total, but we will need the help of all of you to give that little bit extra!

You can donate through our fundraising page here.

Life as an Office Manager

OK - so here is an update. For the past three weeks, our Office Manager/Receptionist left for a holiday to South Africa. Instead of hiring a temp, we had decided that I would take over the front desk instead...

As the GM, I understand how important the Office Manager is in any organisation - we wouldn't have them otherwise! But after 3 weeks in Jess' shoes, I can now say I also truly appreciate it too.

I have never been an Office Manager. Straight out of Uni I did a stint as a contracts administrator for a construction company, then went on to start my own business. I have answered phones before and sent faxes, but there is so much more to an Office Manager's role than meets the eye.

I'm used to working on maybe 3-4 big picture projects, and often at the end of the day, none of these might be complete. However at the front desk, I was completing upwards of 50-60 different tasks all day long. As fast as I would tick off things to do on a list, more would be added on below. Its an intense day, especially for someone who isn't used to multi-tasking!

I had planned to update this blog throughout my experience, but I didn't have time! I am now back at my usual desk, and feeling quite happy now that Jess is back...

Go back to Printer Workz

Spotlight: Wal-Mart's Sustainable Product Index

On July 16, 2009, Wal-mart announced plans to develop a worldwide sustainable product index. They believe it will “lead to higher quality, lower costs and measure the sustainability of products and help customers live better in the 21st century.” So behind all the PR talk, does this project have legs?

Taking a look at Wal-mart’s website, the sustainable product index looks as simple as it sounds – create a label for all products they sell which will tell you how safe the product is, where it is made, whether it is made responsibly and all the other information that consumers might need to know that they are buying sustainably.

A sustainability index could do a lot for consumers, much like our Dietary Intake index here in Australia. According to Wal-mart, measuring the sustainability of a product is one of the biggest challenges of today. Well, at least it is for Wal-mart.

Wal-mart believe that their customers want to know more about how a product is made and what impact it has on sustainability. Their proposal is a massive undertaking for the company that shows how important and true they believe this to be.

The first part of this project, which was recently completed, was to send a survey to 100,000 of their global suppliers to evaluate their own company’s sustainability.

The second step would be to help create a consortium of universities that will collaborate and form a global database on the lifecycle of products to then in turn help establish a platform that will power the index. Wal-mart plan to fund the initial stages of it, but have no intention of owning the index.

The last part will be simply creating a tool for consumers so they can easily understand any products rating of sustainability.

While the index won’t be ready until an estimated 2013, there has of course been plenty of talk about it*. One thing that has been confirmed, however, is that high-scoring products will “earn preferential treatment – and likely more shelf space – in Wal-mart stores”. That will be handy for those who supply what is the America’s second largest company.

So the question is – would you like products to have a sustainability index? And what would it look like for you?

*Here are a few articles posted around the net if you are interested in what everybody else is saying!

Will Walmart's Sustainability Index Really Work? - Fast Company

Wal-Mart's Sustainability Index: The Greenest Thing Ever to Happen to Retail? - Treehugger

At Wal-Mart, Labels to Reflect Green Intent - New York Times

Spotlight: The Prince's Rainforests Project

Sustainability is very important to us here at Printer Workz, so in a series of articles, we wanted to spotlight organisations and people around the world who are exploring ways to fight climate change and preserve the planet we live on. The Prince’s Rainforests Project is one of these organisations.

Who would have thought the rainforests were so important to our daily lives? We probably all have a vague idea that planting trees is a good thing, but according to The Prince’s Rainforests Project (TPRP), deforestation releases more carbon dioxide into the air than all the cars, planes and ships in the world put together.

While buying some books over the holiday period, I picked up this free guide, made by TPRP called Rainforests: The Burning Issue. Rather than being a straight out advertorial on how much we are damaging the environment, this guide puts together a very straightforward and convincing story on how deforestation can affect us and why we are doing it. But more importantly, it suggests a solution.

The guide outlines many reasons on why deforestation is bad for us (it’s the third largest cause of greenhouse gas emissions, rainforests contain many of our medicinal needs etc), but one of the most interesting pieces of information was that rainforests act like a giant water regulator. During the wet seasons, the rainforests absorb excess water, and then during the dry seasons, they release that water, which in turn causes rain.

They say that deforestation has a direct link to flooding and soil erosion during wet seasons, and excessive droughts during dry ones. All of which have effected us Australians of late.

However, deforestation is not an easy thing to stop. It occurs because it makes economical sense. The countries that partake in deforestation need to do so to survive.

What TPRP suggest, however, is a seemingly simple solution – pay these countries to preserve and grow forests, rather than destroy them. They believe that if other countries pitched in and raised 25 billion euros for the next five years, we could stop deforestation. In other words, “make rainforests worth more alive than dead.”

And why would a country like Australia pitch in for that? According to their studies, stopping deforestation would help us all. By paying the governments of countries like Brazil to preserve their rainforests, we would benefit with more stable weather conditions. More water and less drought for our farmers, plus cleaner air for the rest of us.

Of course, they also suggest we choose FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and Rainforest Alliance branded products at the shopping centre.

The question is would you want our government to pay other countries to conserve rainforests?

Check it out at www.rainforestsos.org