By JARROD POTTER
THE hills around his Lysterfield South home have proved the perfect training ground for Ray Losionek’s upcoming 600-kilometre cycling challenge around Thailand.
His bicycle isn’t the tradition upright foot-pedal model – because Mr Losionek uses his hands to crank through the revolutions on the road.
Ray lost his legs in a tram accident when he was a child, but only recently has his passion for hand-cycling taken root.
“I fell off a tram when I was a kid, double amputation, in Sydney – everyone says ‘there are no trams in Sydney’ but there were then,” Mr Losionek said.
“I had my accident when I was eight, but it’s been the last six or seven years that I’ve taken the sport up,” Mr Losionek said.
Boredom inspired him to become part of the lycra generation and hit the pedals and six years later he still constantly longs to get out on the bike and ride the paths and roads around Victoria.
With a para-cycling national championship silver medal in the HC4 category on his trophy case, Mr Losionek decided to leave the racing to next generation and focused on finishing the longer distance challenges instead.
“I’ve won a couple of prizes and a silver medal in 2010 but thought I’d leave this to the young blokes as they’re a little too fast and I’ve taken up long distance cycling,” Mr Losionek said.
He turned his gaze towards the CyclePower campaigns and has hand-cranked his bike around Vietnam, Cambodia and recently finishing a full-island tour of Fiji with the pothole-littered roads of Cambodia and the monstrous hills in Vietnam being his crowning achievements from the rides.
“I’ve done three of them so far – this will be the fourth and I do them just mainly for a little bit of advertising for DSR (Disability Sport and Recreation) and getting people involved in sport,” Mr Losionek said.
“You could call it a passion – if I was allowed to I’d probably be riding every day.”
He wants to inspire everyone to get off the couch and get involved in physical activity.
“If we can get anybody else interested in cycling or sport in general, get them off their bums, that would be good,” he said.
“Give it a go and if it’s not hand-cycling, DSR have a whole range of different sports for disabled people and come and try it.”
CyclePower 2014 begins in July and will see 21 participants with and without disabilities put themselves through an intense 600 kilometre bike ride across Thailand’s highlands and coastlines.
To support the CyclePower riders, contact Karla at Disability Sport and Recreation on 9473 0133 or karla@dsr.org.au.
