Over the past 2 years many people have expressed interest in being either riders or support crew. All of these individuals have eventually had to drop out for one commitment reason or another.

Most of these found it difficult to get the time off on short notice. The weather dependency of the trek made it difficult, if not impossible, to schedule it into a 9-5 work life.

The two alternatives open are to hire a professional backup crew, also difficult to schedule to the weather, or do a solo rider trek.

As this trek has always been the dream and personal "Everest" of Ron Ipsen, the decision has been made to go it alone.

This decision is not taken lightly and many avenues of additional safety net have been added to the design of the trek. These have included an increase in the amount and type of safety gear carried on the riders person to scheduled radio and phone check ins.

Rider.

The rider on the trek is Ron Ipsen. (aka Capt. Rehab)

Ron is a 46 year old male with a below knee amputation of his right leg. His right knee and thigh are held together with metal plates still and he has been advised by the surgeons not to consider removing them if he wishes to proceed on this trek.

Ron’s right elbow is also severely damaged but its neutral position belies the detection of the injury. There is no supranation or pronation at all in that arm. Both the right elbow and right knee have limited bending flexion.

Despite this Ron is an accomplished rider having many thousands of kilometers of jet treking to his credit including 3 1000 km treks along the Queensland coast in the past few years.

Ron grew up fishing in and operating small vessels in the Eastern Bass Strait area and along the southern coast of NSW.

Ron has also been a Navy medic, a nurse, a motorcycle mechanic, power station operator, an inventor, an ISP and a communications consultant to Monash University. He is now retired and is working towards becoming a freelance journalist in the field of PWC tourism.

Ron has a passion for water safety and rehabilitation, and although he would definitely prefer not to do this ride alone - he would rather ride alone than spend the rest of his life wondering if he could have done it and regretting that he did not try.