** Please note: This release was put out on April 26, 2008, at the time of Rick’s return from his around-the-world ride.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE RESIDENT TO COMPLETE AROUND-THE-GLOBE BICYCLE RIDE AT THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE ON MAY 3, 2008.
This Saturday, photographer and journalist Rick Gunn will conclude a 25,000-mile bicycle journey where he started, on San Francisco ‘s Golden Gate Bridge.
Gunn has spent nearly three years traveling through 33 countries on four continents. Inspired by the loss of his mother at an early age, Gunn embarked on his “life-long dream” to circle the globe on July 1, 2005.
Gunn, 44, of South Lake Tahoe , has since worn-out three bicycles, 15 sets of tires, five pairs of cycling shoes, two laptops, and an array of camera equipment. His route took him across the United States, throughout Europe, into Turkey , across Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan then into China. Cycling to elevations nearing 18,000 ft, Gunn then crossed the Tibetan Plateau into Nepal, before crossing India and Bangladesh.
Deeply moved by the effects of poverty, oppression, and war he witnessed along the way, Gunn began volunteering with local aid groups, devoting his time to those who were making sustainable differences in the world. Gunn’s reports about his work with orphanages in Nepal, feeding AIDS patients in a Thailand hospice, and observing land-mine extractions in Laos—along with over fifty other serial installments—appeared monthly in the Tahoe Daily Tribune and the Nevada Appeal.
Gunn continued his travels through Southeast Asia, reporting on mine-victim rehabilitation in Vietnam, teaching English to impoverished school-children in Cambodia, planting trees in Borneo, then volunteering with a Tuberculosis eradication program in war-torn East Timor.
He concluded his cycling abroad cycling south, across Australia and New Zealand. Gunn’s insightful writing and evocative photographs earned him a following among his audience as he progressed along his journey. Much of the funding for Gunn’s trip came through donations from friends and readers.
Gunn will be welcomed by family, friends and media representatives as he arrives on the eastern walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge, Saturday, May 3, 2008, at 11:00 AM.
To learn more about Rick Gunn’s journey, please visit www.rickgunnphotography.com. Rick is presently biking down Highway 1, so the best way to reach him is by email at soulcycler@yahoo.com.
