Randgold Resources Chief Executive Mark Bristow and his 3boyzonbikes team have arrived in Abidjan at the end of a 13,000 km motorcycle ride that took them from Bagshot in England through 17 European and African countries to Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. The purpose of the ride, the second of its kind Bristow has undertaken, was to raise money for humanitarian causes in Africa and to support the Julian Baring Fund, which promotes the training of geologists and mining engineers from African countries.
The team, who travelled as much as 820 km or seven hours a day (on one day taking a gruelling 14 hours to cover 340 km), received donations totalling more than $550,000, which has been distributed among some 40 orphanages, schools and community health projects in Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Malawi and South Africa.
“Riding a motorbike through Africa is very different to flying over it. You get up close to the ordinary people in towns and villages and, as a motorbike provides no insulation against your environment, you can see the need for a helping hand to deprived communities very vividly. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we’ve been able to make a small but helpful contribution to their upliftment,” Bristow said.
The 3boyzonbikes team, which included Bristow’s two sons, was joined in Senegal by members of the Randgold exploration executive committee and the latter part of the trip also covered a tour of the company’s operations and exploration projects in West Africa as well as meetings with the governments in Senegal, Mali and Cote d Ivoire.
“I was impressed by the new Senegalese government’s enthusiastically supportive attitude to mining and by the go-getting approach of the interim government in Mali. Mali is not out of the post-coup woods yet but everyone there is working very hard to find the best way forward,” Bristow said. “It was also heartening to note that wherever we went along our route, from tiny hamlets to ministry offices, we received a genuinely warm welcome.”
The team kept an online journal of their progress and adventures at www.3boyzonbikes.com where sponsors and beneficiaries of the marathon are also listed.