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ISTAT Member Completes 21,500 km Motorcycle Ride to Support Airlink

After nearly three months on the road, and having traveled through 21 countries, ISTAT member Michael Weiss is back home in London, wrapping up a motorcycle ride that started at Cape Town with the first stop being at Cape Agulhas, Africa’s southernmost point. Weiss dedicated his three-month journey to raising awareness and funds for Airlink in a campaign called WheelsDown4Airlink.

A Ride With a Mission

Initially formed by the ISTAT Foundation, Airlink was started in late 2009 and launched its first humanitarian aid response in 2010. This effort coordinated the movement of more than 2,000 doctors and nurses, along with aid totaling 500,000 pounds, to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Over its 15 years, Airlink has transported more than 14,000 responders and 16 million pounds of humanitarian aid by air.

Weiss first became familiar with Airlink’s incredible mission and impressive track record while serving as an ISTAT board member. Feeling inspired by Airlink’s global reach and critical work, he decided to dedicate his trip to the organization.

He started planning this ambitious endeavor over a year in advance. “When trying to come up with a route, it’s all about assessing risk and mitigating that risk as much as possible. In the end, you can’t mitigate all the risks. As someone expressed to me, ‘This journey is not a picnic,’” says Weiss about his early planning process. After many hours of research, he decided on a western route with a 1,500 km detour to Zimbabwe, the country where Weiss was born.

Preparing for the Road Ahead

Route planning wasn’t the only task to be accomplished before setting out. Weiss also took an off-road biking course in Spain to ensure that he had the necessary skills for all road conditions. Additionally, he gathered the tools and spares he needed for the trip, installed fuel jerry cans on his BMW R1250GSA to give him a range of 800 km and secured a satnav and hard copies of maps.

Despite his careful planning, the journey did not come without challenges. Long wait times at border crossings, visas for most of the countries he rode through, poor road conditions, aggressive customs officers and a two-hour ferry crossing across the Congo River Estuary were just a few of the challenges that Weiss had to face, most of which popped up on the fly during his three months on the road. “But the worst was fesh-fesh (a fine, powdery dust found in desert or arid regions) on a mountain pass in Guinea. It was hard work, made worse as I was doing the road at night for various reasons,” Weiss says.

Endurance, Perspective and Purpose

From the first day of his trip, Weiss set an intention: “Failure was not an option.” He took every day as it came and broke the trip into a series of tactical and operational decisions and actions to ensure that he could complete his trip. While on the road, Weiss’s thoughts about getting home to his family and the conditions those supported by Airlink face kept him going. Funds raised from his trip would directly contribute toward Airlink providing timely delivery of medical supplies, food, clean water and other essential aid to those in catastrophic disasters and emergencies.

“Weiss has always demonstrated incredible commitment to Airlink, in his professional career and while on the board of ISTAT, whose Foundation helped establish us as an organization, as well as in his personal life,” says Steve Smith, president and CEO of Airlink. “We thank him for embarking on this ambitious journey, all in the name of fundraising creatively on behalf of Airlink and raising awareness for the work we do year-round in the humanitarian sector. His initiative is an inspiration to us all.”
Weiss’s journey has been a success in both raising funds and awareness for Airlink. Weiss’s daughter, Jessica, helped him reach a global audience by editing his raw footage from the road and posting videos to social media channels dedicated to the campaign.

Now that he’s home, Weiss reflects on the most meaningful parts of his trip: “I met some wonderful people along the way. The camaraderie that I enjoyed with the African bikers from Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal was incredible. They all went out of their way to be welcoming, assist where they could and indeed helped me to get through borders. They went way beyond just being helpful but treated me like a brother and showed me the best of their respective countries.”

When asked what he learned about himself through the experience, Weiss says: “I used to be one of those people who sits around and dreams about doing something like this. It’s another thing to actually say ‘Let’s get on and do it.’ I dreamt about doing this adventure for 30 years and planned it for over a year. But actually executing on the plans was something else. When I stood at the southernmost point in Africa, Cape Agulhas, and turned around to look north, the magnitude of what I was doing hit me: 20,000 km through Africa with largely unknown road conditions, risks, etc. The reality of what I was doing made me stop and think and question whether I was mad and whether I was up to it. Then ‘lamp posts’ popped into my head. I remembered what I used to say to my two daughters when they were young, when we used to go out running. They used to get tired and complain that they couldn’t run home. I told them not to think about how far we were from home, but rather, run to the next lamp post. When you get there, run to the next and so on. Before they knew it, they were home. I adopted the same approach to this adventure.

“The trip required a vision, a strategy, a detailed plan and good execution. I learned that I was more resilient than I thought I was. I had to solve problems and be flexible in how I was executing the plan, but without losing sight of the overall objective. This process and way of thinking can equally be applied in business. I guess that’s where I learned it from.”

Brandon Stokes, Airlink’s vice president and head of development, also weighed in on Weiss’s impressive journey: “The African continent suffers from some of the most devastating yet overlooked humanitarian crises. Weiss’s efforts will make a tangible difference in the lives of others and to our programs, including health systems strengthening throughout the Sahel, hurricane relief in Mozambique, emergency relief for families in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, food aid for Sudanese refugees displaced by conflict and more. This initiative was the first of its kind from an individual Airlink supporter, and we’re thrilled that Michael’s drive and spirit made him the perfect fit for this remarkable mission.”

Continuing the Mission

Those inspired by Weiss’s journey can contribute to Airlink by making a donation at donorbox.org/wd4a. More information about the trip and ongoing fundraising efforts can be found on YouTube and Instagram at WheelsDown4Airlink.

While Weiss has completed his journey, the mission to help Airlink continues. Every donation, no matter the size, ensures that Airlink can continue providing nongovernmental organizations with essential lift to disaster areas.