Yesterday’s post was a little on the somber side, so in slightly less intense human condition news, I’m hoping for the best for Andy Parks.

Aren’t familiar with Andy? He’s an adventurous young man planning to ride his bicycle across part of the UK to raise funds for his favorite football team. Unfortunately, Mr. Parks does not have a particularly admirable track record when it comes to fund-raising endeavors. In fact, given his previous experiences, it seems every bit as likely that Mr. Parks will be killed by a falling piano on the morning of April 9th as it does he’ll complete his planned ride. (I struggled with the urge not to even post the link to the original article there in that earlier sentence, because the straight journalism is funnier than anything I can write here.)

Degree of difficulty is not the issue. While red-blooded American benefit rides usually involve pedaling two or three thousand miles while a distraught family member shadows you in the minivan, the sum total of Andy Park’s trip is a much more reasonable forty miles.

Yes, forty miles.

This, you might be thinking, is some kind of joke. Has the UK instituted some new variation of the metric system that twists our own (goddamn proper) American units of measure just to confuse us and make us look even dumber? Who schedules a fund-raiser to ride fewer miles than some of us commute to and from work each day? I’ll let Darlington’s Northern Echo news site explain:

Mr Parks, 20, hopes to raise more than £500 to pay for shares in Darlington FC 1883 Ltd – the community company set up to buy the football club and lift it out of administration. However, although the cycle ride is only 40 miles, he is mindful that previous challenges have enjoyed limited success.In 2009, when the club was last in administration, Mr Park and best friend Keirran Lamb attempted to walk 120 miles from Darlington to Lincoln in just over two days. But after about 90 miles, Mr Lamb began complaining of chest pains before collapsing of exhaustion.”

OK, so his first attempt, a long walk, was thwarted by the nefarious “walking” portion of the effort. That doesn’t bode well, but Mr. Lamb will not be accompanying Andy on his next effort, and clearly expectations have been adjusted here: we’re talking about a forty mile bike ride instead of a 120-mile walk. Easy.

To be overconfident in Mr. Park’s success this time around, however, would be a mistake. Consider his follow-up to the failed “long walk” fundraiser.

The following year, Mr Park set off to walk to Macclesfield ahead of another Quakers game to raise money for a wheelchair for a family member. After five hours, his torch ran out of batteries. As he was crossing the road to change them, he tripped on a kerb, smashed his head open and had to been [sic] taken to hospital.”

This apparently shorter walk also met with failure–and a kind of spectacular failure, too. If there’s one thing at which Mr. Park excels, it would seem to be undergoing grueling physical trauma under the least taxing of circumstances. Put into perspective then, for a gentleman who’s demonstrated great difficulty in walking across the street to plan a bicycle ride–of any distance–is pretty ballsy stuff.

Undaunted, Andy Park believes his changes to be better than ever on a bicycle, commenting, “Cycling is easier than walking and, fingers crossed, I will have no problems like I have had before.” You have to admire the courage of his positive thinking, even while being slightly terrified at how casually he discusses the act of riding a bicycle, a device that, in his hands, could well cause the death of untold millions.

One promising development is the inclusion this time of a seasoned support team. Park will be joined by two other fans of the Darlington team he’s supporting, Jake Craggs, and “businessman” Andrew Foulds, and they are more than up for the challenge. “Mr. Foulds,” according to the Northern Echo article, “has two false knees and will complete the ride on a 50 year-old bike.” None of this, Mr. Foulds believes, should present any problems. “I’m going along to make sure Andy gets over the finish line this time,” he is quoted as telling the Echo.

The article concludes with information about how to sponsor Mr. Park, which I’ll of course reprint here in order to help in any way I can, and some information about buying shares in the Darlington football team. Potential investors interested in owning a part of the team just like Mr. Park are urged to bring two forms of identity, “one of which must be a photo ID,” presumably to speed up the process of identifying bodies later.

Please consider visiting Sponsorandy.org.uk to support Andy’s effort, or consider saving the lives of potentially dozens of men in the town of Darlington, by visiting Blundelltosincil.co.uk and buying all of the shares of the team yourself. Should you attempt a fundraiser to assist you in this, please just make sure it involves bicycle riding, which is much safer than walking.

If Andy Park isn’t a testament to the indomitable human spirit–the ability of the mind to tell us we can push forward, onward, doing things that aren’t really that difficult despite how badly we always seem to screw them up, then I don’t know what is.

All the best on April 9th, Andy. You will be missed.