Invercargill triathletes, Matthew and Jason Dobson will be riding for 24 hours indoors this weekend, taking only short 10-minute breaks every 1 hour and 50 minutes to stretch and refuel, to raise money for a local family who lost their father to COVID-19. 

The brothers said when they found out about the news, they were very moved and wanted to help in the best way they knew how, whilst the country was still in lockdown. 

The brothers have been racing competitively for two years now. This year Jason competed in the Kathmandu Coast to Coast, coming in third place in the two-day event and Matthew finished fourth in his age group at Ironman New Zealand 70.3 in Taupo this March, qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in November. 

But this fundraiser will be unlike any race they've done before.

"We're very involved in endurance sport... but this is so far outside of what we've ever done for a race endurance-wise," Matthew said. 

Matthew said he got the idea after watching it being done on YouTube.

"I watched a YouTube video of a guy doing 24 hours of cycling on Zwift and I thought it was crazy, but then I thought was this achievable?"

The brothers will be using this same online cycling and training platform to complete the race called 'Zwift'.

Zwift has become hugely popular during the lock-down period as it allows cyclists to interact, train and compete in a virtual world, by taking the input from their bikes via a power meter and using an algorithm to translate the input data into their avatar's speed on the virtual course.

So, cyclists can link up in real-time and cycle together from anywhere in the world.

Matthew and Jason are encouraging any keen cyclists and supporters out there to join them for part of their journey by following their Zwift profiles ‘Matthew Dobson’ and ‘Jason Dobson’ (NZL).

The race starts this Saturday at 7pm and will run until Sunday at 7pm.

The brothers have created a Givealittle page to raise money for the family to put towards funeral costs. They said any left-over funds would be donated to St John Ambulance by the family. 

"We really appreciate all the support we've had so far... we've raised just over $1000 and we want to raise $10,000 by Sunday."

If you would like to donate and support the cause, you can do so via the link below to their Givealittle page.

Regular updates will be posted on their Instagram, so people can follow along with the challenge and “hopefully have a laugh or two along the way,” they said.

Rules to complete:

• 24 hours riding to begin at 7pm Saturday, finishing at 7pm on Sunday evening.
• In every 2-hour block, a 10-minute break is allowed to refuel, stretch, change clothes, bathroom breaks etc.

"We would like to thank our supporters for this event; Pak’nSave Invercargill, Gu Energy Gels, One Square Meal, Cookie Time and [our sister] Tanya Dobson who will be running admin [for the race]."

"We really appreciate all donations received," they said.