Love Me Love You Foundation

Cycling for a purpose.

I’m a cyclist. I love cycling for a few reasons –

1. Cycling is great for my fitness and health.
2. Cycling is a great social outlet.
3. Cycling is so good for my mental health.

I ride with a group called the Knights of Suburbia. We have a very close link with the Love Me Love You Foundation and every year we do a fundraising ride for them called Ride with Me.

What do LMLY do?

LMLY are all about educating young people about mental health and reducing the stigma that so often surrounds struggling with mental health and asking for help.

Lance Picioane, a former AFL footballer, founded LMLY as a result of his journey to manage his own struggles with mental health. LMLY was founded in 2013.

LMLY have a number of programs “that challenge the views and stigmas surrounding youth mental health”. They deliver programs directly to groups of young people in schools as well as to those working with young people and parents.

There is plenty of information about the specific programs on the Foundation website.

Knights of Suburbia

The Knights was started by a few mates who started cycling after they stopped playing footy and wanted to keep active. They wanted to race with their mates and support each other. It wasn’t long before it became more and they joined forces with Lance to build a group who were all about supporting each other.

The Knights motto is “Never Alone”. And we’re all about supporting each other through thick and thin, on and off the bike. The bunch has expanded beyond Melbourne and includes people from all walks of life. We ride together and some of us also race together.

Ride With Me

Ride with Me is a fundraising ride that we do every year. It is always a physically challenging event that gives us just a small taste of the challenges that people struggling with their mental health might experience. Given the challenging nature of the distance and terrain we cover we aim to complete the distance with everyone and not to leave riders alone to battle the physical challenge alone. Our goal is to support each other through this challenge in every way.

This year we are riding 350km over 2 days and will be climbing just over 6,600m. It’s not easy and requires a significant amount of training in the lead-up. I’ll be posting some updates in my Instagram stories over the coming months.

 

 

 

 

P.S. If you are interested in contributing to my fundraising you can do this here. Please note that you are asked to register in order to receive a receipt for tax purposes.