And Finally Artist News

Bono dares you to ride a bike with him for charity

By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 13 January 2016

Bono is auctioning off the opportunity to ride a tandem bike around Central Park with him to raise money for AIDS charity (RED). And, yes, he is aware that you’d have to be quite a brave person to do that.

As you’ll probably remember, the U2 frontman fell off his non-tandem bicycle in the New York park back in 2014, resulting in a number of injuries, some surgery, and the threat that he might never play guitar again.

“Life knocks us down, we get back up”, he explains in a video about the auction, although that would seem to cover him rather than you. No, for you there’s just the chance to be a true thrill seeker. “Forget about jumping out of planes, scaling Mount Everest. Join me for a bike ride and really live on the edge”.

I’ve transcribed that as “the edge” rather than “The Edge”, but who knows what could be in store for the top bidder?

“We’ll ride”. Woo! “We’ll laugh”. Hooray! “We’ll snap a few selfies”. Sure thing! “We’ll talk about our favourite albums”. Love to, B-man! “Geo-politics”. Maybe let’s keep it light. “And I’ll tell you what it feels like to suffer a facial fracture involving the orbit of your eye”. Oh, what? “And having your elbow redone in titanium”. Come on now. “And enduring the physical torture of physical therapy with a Satanic German physio”. Umm. “Good times”. OK.

“If we all survive… we’ll go for an ice cream”, he promises, clawing things back. I love ice cream.

Anyway, watch a video and learn more here: