![\"Hire](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/19751ef5405d0fb95f938e0ac199589760b18054.jpg\")
Camera IconHire was at Karrinyup shopping centre on Saturday afternoon to raise awareness of the ride. Credit: Ross Swanborough\/The West Australian<\/p>\nCycling eight hours non-stop is no easy feat, but sports stars and community members alike are accepting the challenge to change lives and raise funds for Telethon later this month.<\/p>\n
Former Perth Wildcats player Greg Hire is one of 30 riders taking part in the Alcoa Cycle Challenge alongside schools, sporting clubs and other celebrity athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a former professional athlete, physical sort of challenges is something I\u2019m excited about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re in a position to give back and help others, why not?\u201d<\/p>\n
In preparation for the eight-hour test of endurance, Hire said he has been trying fit training in whenever he could, while being a dad and working full-time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been waking up at four or five o\u2019clock in the morning and trying to do three, four hours before heading to work and then ride into work and back,\u201d Hire said.<\/p>\n
Camera IconHire was at Karrinyup shopping centre on Saturday afternoon to raise awareness of the ride. Credit: Ross Swanborough\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
\u201cEven during the school holidays, I\u2019ve got two young kids, so sometimes even playing Mario Party whilst on a bike on a gaming console.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hire was at Karrinyup shopping centre on Saturday afternoon to raise awareness of the ride, joined by Telethon legend Fat Cat. The cuddly star was swarmed by crowds of excited kids as he danced and high-fived his fans.<\/p>\n
Jonathon Dixon, 6, was among the swarm of kids patting Fat Cat\u2019s soft fur and getting a photo.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s magical!\u201d Jonathon said.<\/p>\n
His brother Zachary, 8, had his very own Fat Cat doll and said he watched Telethon each year with his family. His favourite part was that \u201cit helps other people who are are sick\u201d.<\/p>\n
Karrinyup General Manager Trudy Cook said she was pleased that the centre could get involved and that retailers had an opportunity to showcase how they were getting behind the massive fundraising effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible partnership to have, and it\u2019s a very driven community in WA,\u201d she said. \u201cKarrinyup is all about community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The appearances at Karrinyup continue on Sunday with West Coast Fever star Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard set to participate.<\/p>\n
The challenge is part of the Telethon Family Festival on Sunday October 19 outside RAC Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cycling eight hours non-stop is no easy feat, but sports stars and community members alike are accepting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,44,85,501],"class_list":["post-189335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-telethon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}