Event Update - August 2020 - O'Keefe Challenge

We hope you’re keeping safe during this rather unusual year. You certainly don’t need to read any more about COVID here from us, but we want to share with you a quick event update on our upcoming Light The Trail Social Night Ride.
Find out more about the Light the Trail Ride here >

Light The Trail Night Ride – 23 October 2020

Yes, we are tentatively preparing to hold our social night ride on October 23, we have the following timings set for decision making and some potential COVID Safe Event changes.

We have prepared the following timeline for decision making:

Thursday, September 10: Next O’Keefe Challenge Committee Meeting to review COVID situation and advice.
Monday September 14: Current COVID Stage 3 / Stage 4 COVID restrictions are due to be lifted or changed.
Thursday, September 17:
Publicly announce intention to:

Proceed, if COVID restrictions allow and online entries reopen;
Cancel, if COVID restrictions are too prohibitive and existing entries are refunded.

Friday, October 9: Two Weeks Out
If we have chosen to proceed, but the COVID situation has since become too prohibitive, we will decide to cancel on this date and publicly announce this on this date.

Friday, October 23: Event Date for the Light The Trail – Social Night Ride

Some potential COVID Safe Event changes to the Night Ride will be:

The health and wellbeing of the entire Bendigo and Heathcote community is our highest priority and we will only proceed if we are confident that we are able to deliver a COVID safe event. Here are some potential changes we may require to make:

Staggered start times from Axedale
We are likely to need to stagger start times from Axedale for riders to allow safe physical distancing.

Social Distancing at Palling Bros Brewery
We are likely to be limited in how many participants are able to congregate for Presentations and supper at our finish location at Palling Bros Brewery in Heathcote.

Bus return transport
We are not likely to be able to provide bus return transport from Heathcote to Axedale.

Looking ahead to 2021:

For 2021, we are certainly planning to hold our O’Keefe Challenge cycling and running events over the weekend of Friday, April 30 (ride) and Sunday May 2 (running events).
If this is not possible due to COVID, then we would first seek to postpone once again until late 2021.
But as with so many things at present, we will have to prepare as best we can and then keep track of the COVID situation as it develops.

We would again like to thank you – our participants, volunteers, sponsors and stakeholders for your dedication to this event. Please remember to take care of yourselves and each other.