 So I'm here with David Rigney. David started his team, Knights of Suburbia, officially back in 2015 with Russ. So Dave, can you tell us what is Knights of Suburbia? So I wanted to bring you along a little ride this morning. Once a month, Sinkilda Cycling Club, they're one of the biggest cycling clubs here in Australia. They host a monthly ride where members get the opportunity to meet one of the local teams. Now this morning we're meeting with Knights of Suburbia and I'm going to be doing a little bit of work with these guys over the next few months which I'll explain at the end of the video. But the thing about Knights of Suburbia is they're more than just a bunch of people racing bikes. There's a lot more going on there. So this morning what I wanted to do was introduce you to the crew and let's learn a little bit more about Knights of Suburbia. So Alison, do you want to tell us what's going on this morning? Yeah, this is our Sinkilda monthly Velo Vendredi ride. So it's Friday in French. We invite club members down to come for a spin and we tap on the shoulder one of our club race teams or a cause. This week we've gone for or invited Knights of Suburbia to come down. So a great bunch of guys and girls who ride and race in support of the Love Me, Love You Foundation and Youth Mental Health well-being support and fundraising. Did you get involved though? Um, riding with Bearish and all the other guys, I just asked what they do and what they're interested in. And I thought I was also interested in mental health, especially for youngsters, for teenagers and stuff. And that's how I got involved and I enjoyed riding my bike as well. They're nice. How about you? How did you get involved? We were riding with Rigo and Russ who started up KOS and had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a friend of mine that sort of sparked the conversation with the boys about mental health. And from that moment onwards it's grown to about 350 members now. What do you like about riding with the crew? Just the laughs, easy going, getting dropped is great. So how long have you been a member for? 10 years. 10 years? How long have you been a member for? No, normally working, but day off I got myself out of bed and got here. Yeah, the fellow, I do it every month. Every month? What do you like about it? The big number of people, the groups, the different ride options. Yeah, okay, nice. How about yourself? Same deal, I think this is my second. Opportunity to meet some of the people in the community. Catch up with people and yeah, big groups. Is this the biggest group that you've seen here? Yeah, the biggest group. How about yourself? Yeah, biggest group. Officially back in 2015 with Russ. Dave, can you tell us what it is not to suburbia? Well it's a cycling community now. But how it started was more, just a little, a small bunch of guys. We used to play footy and use it as a form of training towards the end of our career. It's a bit easier on the body and stuff. And then we got into crit racing against some teams like you guys. And quickly found out that we needed a team. So it was all around that. Basically we just wanted to be a little bit different. We were already involved with the Mental Health and the Love Me Love You Foundation. So we said let's attach it to that and give it a bit of substance. And that was five or six guys and it quickly became 30. And today, as we ride out here, you can see the support is somewhere between 350 and 400 active members if you want to call it that. So it's become a little bit more than a crit racing team obviously. But yeah, more and more a community now that promotes mental health awareness. We've done quite a lot of fundraising in the past. How much of your rides? It would be somewhere around, in two years it was around 350 to 500 grand. So we're sort of taking it in a little bit of a different direction now. Just more trying to build communities because this was just our network. This was just two guys' networks. So we just thought it really should be happening everywhere. So we're branching out into little communities and starting trying to get people to start their own KOS Bunch Rides. We've had some contact from people in other states and we're going to try and grow it that way. Because it's genuinely making a difference to people's lives and just creating a safe environment for people to talk mental health. Yeah, look, David Rigney and myself started riding probably about four years ago now. We started riding towards end of our football careers and we actually started riding down Beech Road on a Sunday morning and a few mates around the north started racing crits and we thought we'd get out there and have a bit of fun as well. And I noticed a few other teams with some pretty cool kids out there and it all sort of started just by us wanting to get a group of guys together and start racing and design a kit together and just enjoy ourselves I suppose. And I think the connection with Love Me Love You started pretty quick. I played footy with Lance going back many years ago when I was in my junior years. So we thought it was a really good connection and a really good partnership that we could strike up with Love Me Love You. And I think that's really been the stimulus for the growth that we've had over the last three years. We probably started out with probably 20 or so riders when we first set out three years ago and we're all about driving the message for mental health awareness and obviously we design a kit that's pretty out there and we get a lot of attention when we go on grip rides and so forth and that's really what it's all about for us. We get pulled over a lot at lights and at cafes and we get asked who we are and that really just starts a conversation about Knots of Suburbia and the partnership that we've got with Love Me Love You. Love Me Love You Foundation is a mental health awareness organisation that goes into schools and clubs and corporate workplaces to provide education and wellbeing programs, understanding a little bit about support and what it means for a lot of people that are going through the challenges on their journey and how do we overcome that through awareness, acknowledgement and action. My role as CEO and founder of Love Me Love You, I started the organisation, we launched four years ago. It's all based on my lived experience. I've been living with mental illness 20 odd years now. Drug abuse and nearly suicide about seven years ago. So I thought it was a matter of me putting a bit of hope back into the space and the education programs and wellbeing programs and events and campaigns and everything we do. It's just providing people a more safer place to be able to acknowledge what's going on in their life and it's given them the tools and strategies to overcome the challenges that I had to go through and many more other people go through in society. How are you going there? Good, really good. I'm really good actually. I love what I do, I love how I do it with and I understand my mental illness a lot better. I understand it's not cured, I still live with it every day and I understand my triggers and my behaviours and actions that I need to instill in my everyday to make sure that I can go to bed with a smile on my face but understand the challenges that come with it and life's pressures and expectations and everything that goes on with life today is a big challenge and more and more people are going through it but I understand it a lot better now so I can understand how I can move forward with it. You know, the Nices of the Berbia play a vital part in our community awareness, you know, creating those conversations you know, representing the brand every day when they're out on the road or wherever they are just to make sure that people are... it's a conversation start-up pretty much and the more people that are having conversations around this space and you know, because they say Nices of the Berbia, people ask, what's a Nices of the Berbia and they go, oh we're aligned to love me, love you and a mental health awareness and you know, that creates a conversation with people which creates a level of safety and acknowledgement and engagement and the sort of physical aspect of cycling plays a big part and a lot of people that we're like are well-being it's about having those conversations and a place where you can have that conversation and understand what support it looks like for that person. This has been my second year now I got involved at the start of last year during the start of the season thankfully I got asked to join the race team that they were starting there but yeah, I thought Nices of the Berbia is an underlying philosophy and they're aligned with what I was sort of working through at the time myself I was using riding to to help keep me balanced and keep me happy and you know, fitness as well as mental health well-being and I you know, I liked the work that they were doing the inclusive culture of the group and yeah, I mean they've got a, you know everyone's got their own sort of story to tell and it's a very sort of open and caring group of guys and you know, I think for me it's sort of an ideal platform in terms of when you're riding next to someone it's quite an easy way to have a talk about what's going on for you Well, I just saw them riding along and then Instagram, social media Yeah, got involved and what do you like about being part of the team? Well, I have a background in mental health nursing Oh wow, okay I have someone with a vested interest in I guess what they advocate for Yeah, that's awesome, awesome How about yourself? How long have you been involved in love me, love you and nice to be with you? About six months at the beginning of the year after a two and a half year hiatus off the bike I'll be right back in and I guess I'm involved with these guys because I went through a rough patch at the end of last year and a friend of mine suggested you know, this was a great group to be involved with and given the support of love me, love you and yeah, the rest as I say is history How you going now? Yeah, no good, good The bike is good therapy Yeah, not It's cheap therapy It's awesome Yeah, it's fantastic The group is fantastic That's awesome We're having a chat on the bike Yeah, yeah, yeah So you know Rigo from Eltham Yeah, yeah, I live in Eltham so Rigo's and Russ I met at Papa Bear Cafe one morning and I got chatting and then somehow got involved with the Knights of Suburbia and then did the second love me, love you ride Yeah So that was Mary's Will and back and that was a great weekend and to get involved in the group and the cause of the love me, love you the mental health because it's all about having the conversation and getting around the cause Yeah, for sure Yeah, and I love being a knight Alright, so just heading home now and just want to say it's a kill the cycling club great initiative for putting on these bunch rides and Knights of Suburbia what a great crew and what an unbelievable cause really is quite a magnificent thing going on here in Melbourne Now what I wanted to tell you at the end of this video David from Knights of Suburbia he actually reached out to me a couple of weeks ago and many of my subscribers will know that I've got a goal I want to try and win an A-grade criteria before the end of the year and he said to me have you thought about tying this goal of yours into a cause and I said no I haven't but I thought it was a great idea so what I want to do through the Love Me Love You Foundation is I want to try and raise $3,000 if I can win an A-grade criteria I want to have a brand that gets behind the initiative and if I win an A-grade criteria and they donate $3,000 to the Love Me Love You Foundation now that brand which I haven't found yet in return we'll get a full comprehensive review on Bike Chaser with video and we'll also do a video on this YouTube channel right here and I'm also willing to wear their kits or leathers or anything that you like in order to get this done so in the comment section below if there's anyone out there let me know otherwise I'll catch you in the next video