Ride on: James Devenny is preparing to ride more than 420kilometres across Cambodia for charity. Picture: Cathy JacksonBY CLAIRE KNOX
The Melton Weekly, Victoria
14 Feb, 2012
JAMES Devenny is looking forward to the exotic experience of rural Cambodia where he'll ride tandem across the country in late November.
For the Bacchus Marsh resident the smells and sounds will be intensified as he's been legally blind, diagnosed with a progressive, genetic eye disorder - retinitis pigmentosa - since the age of seven.
He has been told by wife Natalie that Cambodia, although poverty-stricken, is a captivating place, rich in culture and atmosphere.
Mrs Devenny has donated much of her time to non-government organisation New Hope, which was set up in 2007 by ex-monk Kemsour Soth and Australian Kerry Huntly to provide free education to slum children in Siem Reap in the country's west.
Mr Devenny and about 25 others will ride for 11 days from the southern beaches of Sihanoukville to Siem Reap to try to raise $50,000 for the New Hope charity.
The money raised will assist with education and health service costs for locals living in Mondul 3, a slum area of Siem Reap.
To prepare for the ride, Mr Devenny has added cycling training to his hectic schedule.
He co-owns an accounting firm and is busy doing shotput training for the Paralympic selection trials this year.
Mr Devenny , who played rugby as a teenager, was encouraged by his wife to get back into sport after he hit a low point when his vision plummeted.
He said it was incredibly hard to pick up the shotput without vision.
"A lot of people think it's all upper body, but it's all in your legs and shifting power from legs to arms, and spinning. Balancing as a vision-impaired person is so much harder. You don't realise how much we use our eyes to balance."
The cycling group, supported by the Rotary Club of Bacchus Marsh and Raw Travel, departs Melbourne on November 24.
More details: 0400085583 or ndevenny@hotmail.com
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