Briton raises funds on penny farthing
SYDNEY, Australia --English leukemia survivor Lloyd Scott completed his Australian coast-to-coast odyssey Thursday as he steered his penny farthing bicycle into the waves at Sydney's Bondi Beach.
The former soccer player pedaled into Sydney on Wednesday at the end of his 2,700-mile trip on the ungainly bike.
On Thursday, he took the penny farthing on a tour of Sydney landmarks including the city's Opera House and Harbor Bridge before rolling down to its most famous crescent of sand, Bondi Beach.
As well as raising money for a children's leukemia charity, Scott said he hoped he would inspire other sufferers of the disease.
"It's worth the pain because there's a very personal message from me as well, the fact that I actually had leukemia," he said. "I mean, someone today will probably be diagnosed as having leukemia and they can say, `Oh, that guy who rode the bike across Australia, he had leukemia,'" he added. "It might instill a little bit of hope or inspiration or encouragement and that's something we can rarely give somebody else."
Scott on Thursday wore the same clothes he was in at the start of his ride -- a tweed suit and deerstalker hat similar to those worn by fictional British sleuth Sherlock Holmes.
In earlier fund raising efforts the former firefighter and professional soccer player from Essex, southeast England, has completed the New York and London marathons in a vintage diving suit -- complete with boots and helmet -- that weighed in at a hulking 130 pounds. He took five days to finish the New York race.
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On the Net:
www.leukaemiachallenge.org 