This photo was taken by one of the several photographers posted around the course. It was on the infamous Hatepe Hill. Infamous because it's the last thing you'd want to encounter after already cycling 130km. The hill is so steep that many riders had to push their bikes up it. It's the last big uphill on the course, and a welcome relief when you finally get to the top!

At the end of last month I took part in my first Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge.

It’s hard to picture now, with the rain we’re having, but the weather was amazing. Clear skies and scorching hot by mid-morning. The annual race draws thousands of competitors from around the country each year to ride around Taupo’s beautiful lake and countryside.

I chose to use my race to raise funds for Medicine Mondiale, and to make my challenge that much harder I rode a track bicycle. For those unfamiliar with such bikes, they’re the kind ridden by the likes of Sarah Ulmer on a velodrome. Track bikes have only one gear and no freewheel. The rear wheel is connected directly to the pedals resulting in a fixed drivetrain. This means I had no choice but to pedal for the entire race – no coasting down the hills or changing down to an easier gear when I got tired or on the steep climbs. As far as I know, I was the only person to do the full 160km solo ride on a track bike.

The race was tough but went really well. I finished the 160km well within my target, coming in with an official time of 5.37.15.

I also managed to raise more than $1200 for Medicine Mondiale – more than double what I was hoping to raise.

My thanks go out to everyone who donated in recognition of the great work Ray Avery and Medicine Mondiale do for people less fortunate than ourselves.

Post written by David Kraitzick

We are absolutely delighted that ‘Rebel with a Cause’ sold out the first print run in record time, and is still sitting at number 3 on the the NZ Non-Fiction Bestsellers List!  This is fantastic and everyone involved in the book is incredibly proud.  Thank you to you all for your interest in the book and the support you have given.  Do spread the word as all profits raised from the book go directly to Medicine Mondiale and the valuable work we are doing.

We need to teach people how to look at things.  I have not invented anything that hasn’t existed before . . . As a country we need to start applying that knowledge, turning it into practical things.

I was recently involved in Auckland University of Technology’s inaugural three-day design challenge.  Teams ere tasked with creating the missing element for a baby incubator, (recently designed by Medicine Mondiale) for use in developing countries. Days out from the event, the teams were provided with $100 and basic prototyping materials and set to work.

My role in the 3-Day Challenge was to brief the students, critique their designs and announce the winning team.  It was a great event, and more information and a great video can be found at the Idealog Design Daily website: http://designdaily.co.nz/blog/2010/09/all-you-need-love-100-and-basic-prototyping-materi

Paul Holmes interviewed me with Dr John Hood some months ago, you might like to view this by clicking the link here: http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/q-ray-avery-and-john-hood-interview-3612934

This is an excert from a feature article in The Listener this week.

It is written by Diana Wichtel who interviewed me at work recently.  You can read the whole article here: http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3667/features/15989/the_rebel_who_found_his_cause.html

From unpromising beginnings, Ray Avery chose the path of scientific doer-of-good rather than axe murderer.

The war against cliché suffers a setback when you meet Ray Avery. Phrases like “stranger than fiction” and “you couldn’t make it up” spring irresistibly to mind, along with the occasional “what the …?”

Even the taxi driver is bemused. “Is this an office?” he wonders, as he idles outside a house that, while hardly grand, does stand out in the neighbourhood east of Dominion Rd, Mt Eden. There’s an intercom at the gate, a red sports car in the drive and a sign announcing Avery’s development agency, Medicine Mon­diale, on the stone fence.

It’s a home and an office, I tell the driver. Of a person who invents things that save lives in developing countries. A scientist. “I didn’t know there are scientists in New Zealand,” says the driver.

Indeed. Especially ones with a garage that resembles a set from Breaking Bad, that television series about a science teacher with cancer who cooks methamphetamine to provide for his family. A while back, the garage door was open and there were men in space suits wandering around (doing something sterile), causing a serious rubbernecking hazard. “It looks like the biggest P lab in the world,” says Avery contentedly, surveying his bizarre domain.

He is very famous – winner of New Zealander of the Year and the Blake Medal for Leadership this year alone – for someone many haven’t heard of. More will now, thanks to his book, Rebel with a Cause. It’s the surprisingly funny story of a child born in postwar Britain who was abused and abandoned to foster homes and orphanages. The sort of book with a chapter that begins: “I lived under a railway bridge for the next eight months.” He was a young teenager at the time.

Avery’s father and mother were spectacularly feckless. His mother once considered selling him. When he was nine she beat him so badly he was made a ward of the court. He never saw her again. “They didn’t want me,” he writes, “and I don’t have a single good memory of either of them.”

Add such further obstacles as short sightedness, dyslexia and glue ear, and Charles Dickens would have rejected him as a character on the grounds of implausibility.

Avery might have grown up to be an axe murderer. Instead, he learnt to play a bad system, met eye doctor Fred Hollows and went on to design intra­ocular lens factories in Nepal and Eritrea, helping to restore sight to millions of cataract sufferers. He has invented a life-savingly precise and cheap intravenous drip clamp, a super protein food supplement and a low-cost incubator that can withstand developing world conditions. Possibly his greatest invention to date is himself.

Read on…..this is a great article – http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3667/features/15989/the_rebel_who_found_his_cause.html

We are delighted that we have sold so many copies of Rebel With a Cause so quickly – we hope you’re enjoying the read.  If you haven’t ordered your copy yet don’t miss out we have limited stock for sale on our website.

Below is a review of our launch of ‘Rebel with a Cause’ from former leading New Zealand Publisher and Bookseller Graham Beattie, you can read the full article on his blog at:  http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/random-day-bookman-attends-two.html

“Wow, this was a biggie. More than 200 turned out for the launch of Ray Avery – Rebel With a Cause.
We were all there as guests of Kiwibank (sponsors of the New Zealander of the Year award of which Ray Avery was the inaugural recipient.), Random House and Sky City with wines from Invivo, Pelorus and Cloudy Bay. It was quite a party.

Brilliantly MC’d by Oscar Kightley, a close friend of Ray Avery, in fact he desribed himself and Ray as brothers from different mothers.Oscar  described the book as “an hilariously sad read”.
Other speakers included Sam Knowles CEO of Kiwibank, Jenny Hellen deputy publisher Random House NZ (below right), and then of course the man of the hour, New Zealander of the Year Ray Avery.

In his moving and impressive address spoke of his fondness of New Zealand, “the Antarctica Riviera”, of his philosophy and belief that anyone can achieve anything if they don’t give up no matter how tough things get. He went on to pay special thanks to Kiwibank for recognising Kiwis who are making a difference, Paul Little for ghost-writing the book for him, Random House, Sky City amd Pelorus Wines.

As Jenny Hellen said Ray changes the world, he changes everything and everyone around him.

After the speeches Ray patiently and most graciously signed copies of the book and had his photograph taken with numerous fans for well over an hour with Unity Books reporting sales of close to 150 copies. Bravo.”

Mr. Ray recently attended the official opening of the 2011 New Zealander of the Year. The Rt. Hon. Jim Bolger presided over the event help at Te Papa, Wellington.

Read more about it in this Dominion Post article.

To learn more about the five awards categories and to make a nomination please visit the awards’ website.

“You have to be a moral global citizen and understand that the only science that you should apply is good science” – Ray Avery

Watch the video about the remarkable story of the New Zealander of the Year, Mr. Ray, on TVONE’s Sunday.

Read more about Medicine Mondiale’s Ethical Science Group.