Donate

We've had more than a few requests from people who expressed a will to donate money.

The best way to contribute towards the goal of encouraging Timorese talent to explore the beautiful backcountry, is to locate said talent, get them to sign up (just send us an email — race@timordetour.rocks) and to remove obstacles, one of which will quite likely be the issue of getting a decent mountainbike. It would be awesome if you could help by using your network — borrowing a bicycle, or getting a second-hand one over from abroad, … — to make that happen!

For an organization of our scale, for reasons explained here, it doesn't seem like a very good idea to offer direct sponsorships through the TD organization.

What we can do, however, is to accept donations which will be used to make a dent in a very practical problem that aspiring national cyclists face in Timor: getting decent quality bikes. There is some supply of new Indonesian bicycles in Dili, but the price for such a mountainbike (in the nonlethal category) is easily upwards of USD600, which for many Timorese is an utterly nontrivial amount of money to spend on non-essential goods. Then there is some supply through expats in the form of hand-me-downs, but that comes down to just a couple of bikes per year, if any.

So, depending on funds raised, we plan to increase the supply of bicycles by getting buy a bunch of (probably second-hand) bikes from Australia, and having them shipped over as race awards for the top scoring national riders. The funding source for these bikes would come part from the entrance fees, part from channeling the goodwill of the many generous cycling enthusiasts who, not being able to ride in the Timor Detour for one reason or another, have reached out asking to sponsor the program.

So, if you feel sufficiently inspired — please head over to our GoFundMe page and help make this happen!