Rhino Ride

On Sunday, November 1, Hassan Sachedina dipped the back tire of his bicycle in the chilly waters of the Pacific at Encinitas, California to begin a quest to save one of the world’s most endangered species.
 It was the start of RhinoRide, Hassan’s quest to cycle across half of America to raise awareness for African rhino conservation.
A Kenyan-born PhD trained environmental manager with extensive conservation field experience in Tanzania and Kenya, Hassan’s self-funded ride raised more than $4,600 for rhino conservation (http://www.firstgiving.com/rhinoride), exceeding his original goal of $4,200 – one dollar for every black rhino left in Africa.  
Unseasonably cold weather – at least for Texas, and for someone riding a bicycle across the Lone Star State –  forced Hassan to end the ride in Del Rio, short of his planned stop in San Antonio. 
Over more than 4 weeks and 1,200 miles, Hassan averaged 52 miles a day over some of the most demanding terrain imaginable.  Over the Davis Mountains of West Texas Hassan found “..places (where) the hills were so steep that my front wheel was moving so slowly that my speedometer read zero for periods of time.”
In the small West Texas town of Kent, Hassan bedded down for the night in what he described in his RhinoRide blog as a ‘burger van”, a small trailer known to the regular customers in Kent as ‘Burgers-n-More.’  The hamburger grill kept the ‘burger van’ toasty warm as the outside temperature dipped below freezing over night.
It was an incredible adventure and one you can share when you visit Hassan’s RhinoRide blog at http://www.rhinoride.org/.  And you can find out about RhinoRide, Part Two when you follow Hassan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HSachedina.