Starting at Mitre 10 Mega Napier at 6am on Saturday and finishing at Wellington\u2019s Queen\u2019s Wharf, the fleet turned plenty of heads along the way, with riders dressed as everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Top Gun pilots.<\/p>\n
Among them was Napier\u2019s Shane Laking dressed as an escaped prisoner, riding his \u201cold school chopper\u201d scooter he designed and built himself with a KX85 engine.<\/p>\n
It would go on to win the best scooter award at the event\u2019s prizegiving.<\/p>\n
Somewhat of a perfectionist, Laking said he built and rebuilt the scooter \u201cabout four times\u201d before he was happy with it.<\/p>\n
One of the scooter\u2019s most notable features is its long twisting exhaust pipe \u2013 a characteristic that Laking admitted he got a little carried away with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made one and then I didn\u2019t like it, so I cut it up and I made another one until I kind of thought it looked a bit artistic and a bit handmade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Laking said the bike was all about looks, not comfort, and his bum was still numb on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t helped by a group decision to ride their scooters back to Napier from Wellington on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, when I first sat on that thing again, it was painful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Despite the desensitised derri\u00e8re, Laking already had plans to build another scooter for next year\u2019s challenge.<\/p>\n
Jolly Good Chaps trustee Glenn Fulcher, who joins the riders each year, was thrilled the trust had now raised just under $700k for Hawke\u2019s Bay charities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFunds raised through the challenge are distributed via the Jolly Good Chaps Charitable Trust and support a wide range of grassroots organisations making a real difference in the region,\u201d Fulcher said.<\/p>\n
Past beneficiaries include the Westshore Sea Scouts, who purchased marine radios to get more young people safely out on the water, and Wellness Riders, who help youth improve mental wellbeing, reduce screen time, and build confidence through skateboarding and mentorship.<\/p>\n
In Wairoa, All Hui uses funding to bring local men together through fitness challenges and shared activities to promote connection and wellbeing, while Napier Community High School uses funding to provide engaging experiences for students removed from mainstream schooling.<\/p>\n
Other organisations supported by the Jolly Good Chaps include Awhi Trust, Building Futures, Mates 4 Life, and mentoring programme Big Brothers Big Sisters.<\/p>\n
Organisers of the challenge said the continued success of the ride was a testament to the generosity, humour, and community spirit that Hawke\u2019s Bay is famous for.<\/p>\n
Donations for the challenge are still being accepted at the Jolly Good Chaps website.<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting at Mitre 10 Mega Napier at 6am on Saturday and finishing at Wellington\u2019s Queen\u2019s Wharf, the fleet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,4765,1863,6636,1977,73887,31125,2082,26197,5511,3025,3607,111,43,139,69,90,384,21529,56574,68616,61,52],"class_list":["post-319898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-annual","tag-back","tag-challenge","tag-charity","tag-costume","tag-epic","tag-for","tag-homemade","tag-just","tag-most","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-people","tag-ride","tag-scooter","tag-silly","tag-to","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}