Gkam84 needs a trike to ride and help him deal with early Parkinson's - he's 28 FFS

Just a quick thank you to everyone before I get some shut eye. I am sitting on 20% of my goal. Your support has been amazing, Little did I know how wonderful the cycling community could been until I started this.

Tomorrow's mission.....Target the emotional side of some people in the "anti-cycle" section of society. I don't mean the white van man and people who cut us up all the time. But people who have given us bad press lately. For instance Karmarama agency and others of the same ilk, who might be looking for a good story after their bad reputation with cycling recently.

If you can think of anyone, give me a shout

Yeah I know, that does include my adding £350 towards the total in "offline" donation's after checking my bank balance.

I don't know if that shows up properly on the page, I will be putting that in an update tonight at some point.

I do understand ICE's stance though, they aren't a huge multinational like some other bike manufacturers. Unfortunately, there are no recumbent multinational's to go and speak to about it either. That's why I decided to raise money on my own.

What do people think of the video?

Oh well, worth a try. Still, you're at 19% already, so there's lots to be positive about.

I got a reply from ICE Trikes

Quote:

Dear Keith,

Thank you for your enquiry.

ICE receives many requests from for financial help every year. Although we would love to help we cannot support everyone and it wouldn’t be fair to choose one person over another. Instead we support charities in their work to enable people to cycle by donating a trike. Last year we donated a trike to the Challenged Athletes Foundation who have done a great job in hosting trike taster sessions, rehabilitation clinics and support groups. This has meant that lots of people have benefited from the donation and have gone on to achieve their sporting and fitness goals.

I also work with riders to raise awareness for the charities they support. For example I have recently helped Joe Beaumont in his efforts to raise money for the Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team by posting information on our Facebook pages and writing articles for our blog.

Your nearest dealer is Laid Back Bikes in Edinburgh. Dave is very knowledgeable and will give you great advice and organise test rides for you. However, he is a small independent retailer so I don’t think he will be able to set up a payment plan for you.

I am sorry that we cannot help you in but please keep in touch; there may be some way we can assist you in the future.

Thank you Kingrolo.

Trust me when I say, no-one has shed more tears than myself over there. I took me two weeks to finally publish this after reading it every night and then thinking "nah, no-one cares" and then the past couple of days when donation's come in, its really astounding to know that people who don't know me, still care.

Today I've got so many retweets from pro cyclists. The list about could at least be doubled. A few tweets of support aswell and some Spanish/Portuguese person using some dodgy language and dropping the F word at me because I was asking for retweets and that I was begging for followers on twitter. I don't think he quite understood.

I have also emailed ICE on their generic "sales" email address to see what they might be able to do to help.

I have suggested a payment plan to them, starting with a deposit of my own £350 savings (which I have added to the goal) and the £210 I've received in donation's so far.

With any further donations and some of my benefit's paying off the rest of the cost. Hopefully they can put something like that in place for me. But we'll see.

I am hopefully that my link and story will be up on another forum I use alot that isn't cycling related. After asking the owners permission because they have a strict "no charity/begging or self advertising" rule. But from a chat with them, they are willing to adjust the rule's to enable me to post my story.

I've been using that site for 8 years and am quite well known. They have a user base of over 15k and around 5k active, So even if they all donated 50p, I'd make my goal.

Thank you all for your continued support and I hope to repay all your kindness by getting a trike and doing video's and blog posts for you all to read, whether that be here or starting my own blog.

Wow, I've just read your funding page and finding it difficult not to cry sat at my office desk. It puts the complaining phone call I got earlier chasing a report I was supposed to write last week into perspective. Good luck on your fundraising. I'm pretty sure it wont be long until you're way over your target.

Finally finished the video. Let me know what you guys think. I'm not sure about it.

http://gofundme.com/Gkam84

Thanks for all the support received so far. Going to hit twitter hard again this afternoon with more pro cyclist's. Hopefully some more retweets in the offing after I reached my limit on tweets yesterday

Thank you TheHatter

Pisiform, you make a great point there for anyone else reading this whom may suffer from a disability that means they need help with travelling or living in general.

Unfortunately, I was told by the benefits centre to try for this part of the benefit, but after having the medical tests. I failed to be eligible because "I do not need help to walk, I can walk a good distance and do not need guidance or supervision outdoors"

I tried to appeal this because of my anxiety, I cannot travel on public transport alone, but this was rejected on the grounds the my granny has a car. I don't know why that comes into it. But I am not going to go and challenge it again at the moment. Until I've spoken to the benefits centre who advised me to try for it.

Gkam- you may have already done this but if you have significant anxiety and can't use publictransport and now have a confirmed diagnosis of PD then you should be eligible for the mobility component of disability living allowance.

If you've applied and failed then appeal the decision. Everyone fails now and you must remember this has nothing to do with medical need and everything to do with politics.

The money could be enough to cover a monthly payment towards a recumbent bike at the lower rate. People on the higher rate buy cars with it.

Welfare rights organisations are helpful in sorting out applications.

Donation made - hope ur soon out on the road again.

Yeah Revo, its a great frame that I've built into a bike, unfortunately I just can't ride it anymore.

Thank you so much for your donation

Wondered why the Allez frame went back on the market so soon .... now I know - a little extra coming your way

Positivity was never my strong suit, but this weekend has given my unlimited positive things. Just getting tweets and support has been amazing. Donation's at sitting at £125 which has stunned me.

I've also has a couple of emails regarding features/interviews. Which I'm thinking about. I didn't know people would be interested. I need to look at the properly, because I don't want to end up in a Karmarama style stunt.

Today I've had retweets from all these people and gone right up to my tweet limit for today

Yanto Barker
Wesley Kreder
Amy Dombroski
Simon Geschke
Gabriella Day
Marijn de Vries
Tosh Van der Sande
Christian Heule
Sergio Pardilla
Bert Grabsch
Russell Hampton
Filippo Pozzato
Kenny De Ketele
Benat Intxausti
Haimar Zubeldia
Steven de Jongh
Emma Trott
Giovanni Visconti
Eros Capecchi
Xavier Florencio

I saw this article a while ago, amazing, reminds me of a year ago when I could hardly stand first thing in the morning, doctor told me I had an inner ear infection affecting my balance, while on my bike I had no problem, cheers and keep staying positive GK.

Just seen this, very interesting article. Even for the big G. Now I want to understand why I can't cycle upright, yet this 58 year old can. Got the DR's on Thursday, so will investigate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/nov/18/cycling-parkinsons-wellcom...

Do you think that is the kind of feature they might be interested in? I will fire off an email on Monday then.

I have been looking at other publications and online outlets who might run a story/feature for me. So I'll also contact them.

I just don't want this getting out of hand and being everywhere. I know that would be good for my story and donations, but I've also seen what has happened on Go Fund Me before, where someone puts up a small amount and people take pity on them, their donations rocket and amass far more than their target.

I don't want that to happen. If people would like to donate, thats fantastic, but I don't want pity, I just want to be able to get cycling again. I've been struggling the past couple of weeks on an upright and knackered old trainer, only getting 15 minutes in at a time before I have to come off.

Have you thought about contacting Cycling Weekly?

My dad does PR, so could easily get in touch with the editor, otherwise just email them outlining your cause and they may do a feature for you.

Really good luck, you deserve it bud.

Me again folks. Been busy replying to tweets and emails this afternoon from people interested in my story.

Loads of retweets (38) at latest count. All in one day, When my first donations came in, I don't mind admitting it had me in tears to know that there are people out there who care about others they barely/don't know.

I come back here to see if anyone has idea's on how to get my page spread further around the internet?

Tomorrow I am going to tweet the many pro riders I follow to see if I can get tweets from them aswell. But I'm trying to think outside twitter?

OR, there is an option on Go Fund Me, to offer "rewards" to donors. But I can't think of anything, I don't really have much to offer others.

I thought about a raffle for one of my remaining two bikes, the one's I have for sale in the classified's. So 1 ticket per £5 donation or something like that. But they aren't new bikes or particularly appealing to everyone.

Any thoughts and suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks again for all the support. It means so much to me, that I can't really put it into words. Just to know that people out there care.

I don't mind, as Tesco say, every little helps.

Tell your parents I am very grateful to them.

I'm not reluctant to publicise, just on places where people kinda of know me, I don't want to ask. That's why i've been tweeting larger companies and those with a few thousand followers. Get it spread out there in the public eye.

I know that it's just coming up to xmas and with the financial climate as it is, many people cannot donate, for that simple reason.

This site, unlike many, doesn't have an end date for raise money. So what I'm doing is leaving any money in my paypal account until such time's as I am able to afford a trike. If for any reason this never comes about or a company steps in to help me. Then the money will still be there and I think I can just press refund??

That way, everyone could have their money back

Done. I also tapped up my parents for a tenner, which is included in the donation. They send their best wishes!

I would be a bit reluctant to publicise as well, but have no such inhibitions if it's not me. Therefore, I hope you don't mind that this morning I blatantly asked ice for a discount!

Wow, thanks guys. Just come on here after replying to someone on twitter who was having digs because I own an xbox, have a two year old phone and a guitar. Asking why I don't sell them before asking others for help

I put the link in my signature as I didn't really want to start a thread. I'm not a person who really asks for help from people I barely know. But it has come time where I'm left with no option.

I didn't want to see like I was begging anyone to read my story either. I've been asking for re-tweets on twitter, just to get my story out there.

Took me over two weeks to go active with it having put it off so many times because what I've written is really quite personal and I was worried it would just sound like a sob story.

I have set the aim for £2500, by the time the fee's are taken off, that would come down to around £2100ish. But obviously if I can find a second hand one cheaper I would stop the donations.

I have tweeted ICE Trike's, mainly hoping for a discount or some sort of package from them, however unlikely that may be. As they say, anything is worth a go.

If there is anything anyone wants to know about me or questions that you might have at any time. Just give me a shout and I'll happily answer them.

Thank you for starting a thread, but please don't feel you have to donate or put any pressure on others to do the same. I know more than most how hard money is to come by at the moment. Encourage people to read it by all means though.

Seen it already... need to get onto my laptop first to donate though.

Don't know why I didn't think to start this thread though! Between this place and social media, £2.5k cant be impossible. Fortunately I guess he's already got all the clothing, pedals etc.

Ere Dave, any chance of some fantasy cross racing or something? Tenner to enter, all proceeds for the above?

Excellent idea - I'm in,

Just donated what I could afford on the site - wish I could do better, but I hope it all helps.

Regards,

Trikeman.