Bionic Ear Bike Ride

This text is a direct extract of an article which appeared in a Bionic Ear Institute newsletter. The riders that feature in the article, John Nelson and Ted Lowe, rode Tri-Sled Gizmo on their ride to raise money for Bionic Ear research.

John Nelson and his friend Ted Lowe have raised an amazing $45,500 for Bionic Ear research by cycling the 9,500 kilometres from Darwin down the West Coast of Australia back to John’s home in Bairnsdale.

Originally planned for 2002, the trip had to be postponed when John contracted meningococcal meningitis just days before leaving. For the next 19 days, John fought for his life. He survived, but had to have the lower parts of both legs amputated.

A lot of people would have been discouraged by this. Not John. “It gave me the momentum to keep going”, he says. “I’d spent so much time getting the trip organised and I was due to fly to Darwin for the ride before I got sick, so I always believed I was going to do it”.

On June 13 last year, John and Ted left Darwin on recumbent trikes to start the long ride home.

“It was an interesting trip,” he says with typical understatement. “We had close encounters with wild camels, brumbies and emus and became fairly well known by a lot of people who were travelling the roads in this area. The truckies driving the road- trains got to know us and called us the little ants!”

Cycling during the cooler parts of the day, John and Ted averaged 72km over day, sometimes doing 100km if they wanted to reach a particular place.

What motivated him to undertake such a challenge? John and his wife Kay have four children, two of whom are deaf. Neither of his children had a Bionic Ear, but one day one of their friends called around with her little boy who was also deaf and who had a Bionic Ear. “He was playing happily on his own and his mother fitted the speech processor and it was like he was a new boy. I took him outside to look at Archie the parrot. Archie let out a squeal and Bailey just looked at him and said ‘WOW!’. I was amazed at how this opened up his world.”

Excited by the opportunities that this device seemed to represent, John called the Institute and offered to raise money for research. “I want to see more deaf children get bionic ears, enjoy normal speech in early life and find exciting jobs,” he says.

John’s Rotary Club – Mitchell River – got right behind the venture, contacting Rotary Clubs on the route, organising fundraising events, sending regular bulletins and obtaining publicity for the ride. Two club members even brought their retirement ahead so that they would be able to accompany John and Ted in a support van for the five months.

“The support of not only my Rotary Club but all the clubs along the route was just phenomenal”, John says, “and in fact the generosity of everyone we met along the route was outstanding with everybody donating money for our cause”.

The money raised will fund a PhD scholarship for three years to carry out research specifically in the area of children’s hearing. This is crucial research. Despite the success of the Bionic Ear in providing improved perceptual skills, there is still much to be done to appreciate how children using the Bionic Ear can best be educated and develop speech and language. Many of these children are still falling behind in educational progress. Thanks to the brilliant effort by John, Ted, the Rotary Club of Mitchell River, and the new work we will be able to undertake as a result of the scholarship, we hope that the social, educational and career prospects of hearing- impaired children around Australia will be further improved.

Travelling on a bike you see so much scenery it gives you time to really appreciate it, although others don’t always see it that way. A bloke drove past us once, stopped his car and came back for a chat. He said ‘I’ve heard about you blokes and thought you were mad, but now I know you’re mad’.