In summary...

SO! Why this trip!?
First, the idea was to go enjoy the outdoors and travel in a way that puts us in the “deep end” – only simple mobile phones as modern technology, sometimes no maps to guide us, we wanted to be speaking to locals for a taste of their ways and hospitality. Helping travellers in need is good for Karma right!?

Second, coming from one year of intense learning about sustainability and leadership, we wanted to see how sustainability projects are realised in different places and at various scales. We were excited about some field learning and also to “teach” whatever would seem appropriate.

Except riding bicycles, in what way(s) did your activities relate to sustainability?
We are talking about sustainability as defined in the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD), or “Natural Step Framework”, in which there are three principles for ecological sustainability, and one for social sustainability. The latter is based on the idea that everyone on Earth should be able to meet their needs: Subsistence, freedom, identity and so on.

From this perspective, many activities we took part in had a strong link with these principles. The Berlin Kulture Karnival is a great display of peoples’ identities, participation, leisure, freedom, etc… as basic human needs. In Karlskrona (Sweden) we organised a dialogue with the local community about cultural diversity. In Prague we had a workshop for cross-pollinating ideas, giving input and feedback on different local sustainability projects. We were also lucky to meet activists from Prague and Budapest who are working on making cycling easier in these cities. So all this is focused on people, their environment, their health and morale.

Why this particular outlook?
The reason why we chose to look at these projects through the FSSD is that it provides a functional definition of sustainability and ways to move organisations and communities towards sustainability. Coupled with social technologies designed for large-scale collaboration, the FSSD is a powerful framework.

Our adventure revealed a small but golden sample of what collaboration and initiative can bring: connecting people, sharing ideas and hopefully energising some great projects!

Sounds great, where can I learn more about all this?

For more information about: 

• The FSSD, see www.thenaturalstep.org
• Social technologies for effective collaboration across sectors and for complex endeavours: www.artofhosting.org
• Training in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability: www.bth.se/msls
• Training in Sustainable Product and Service Systems Innovation: www.bth.se/mspi

You didn’t pull it off alone did you? Who helped you??
Please see the “special thanks” page by clicking on the tab above, and thank YOU for reading!

Say hi to Ride for your Right, say good bye to our bikes..

It has been over two weeks since we officially finished our "Ideas on tour", Sweden to Serbia bike trip, at the opening ceremony of Ride for your Rights (RfyR). It seemed the joy of completing our quest and the relaxing atmosphere of European summer have kept us away from blog posting :) By the way, this trip cannot be completed without us recording the story on this blog about the final moment in Novi Sad, on July 3rd, 2011. And now it is time...

Back to Novi Sad, Serbia, on that morning of July 3rd

After we had been enjoying very pleasing two-night stay in Novi Sad, hosted by Svetlana, RfyR coordinator) and her friends. We also met riders from Ride for your Rights. They came from many countries, including Serbia, Bulgaria, and Finland. New friends and good food took away completely all our fatigue of a week-long biking since Vienna. By Sunday morning, we were well rested and ready for the final show.

We gathered at the main town square, in front of the city hall, at around 10.30 am. There we met all the 13 riders and the support team. Also present were  Aleksandar Kravic - city counselor for Sports of the Novi Sad City Council, Miroslav Veskovic - rector of the University of Novi Sad, Wojciech Wolf - vice-president of Campus Europae who each delivered a short speech in front of local media and news agents. After that came the speech from Julian who is a member of the core team and one of the main rider who will ride all the way to St. Petersburg. He also presented the bike of honor to the city counselor to sign on.

 

With riders and staff

 The opening ceremony

And finally, after months of preparation and a month of perspiration on the road from Karlskrona to Novi Sad, it was time for Xavier and Nanond to present themselves in front of people of Ride for your Rights. We made a short speech which, due to our excitement, we couldn't remember much the detail of what we spoke. It was a good message that included a note to thanks to our friends and BTH for their support. 

The hard part was when we had to hand over beloved bicycles. We had found a bound with them during the trip so it was a bit sad to give it away. Anyway, we knew that it would be used for a good course, to support the young students with similar motivation on their quest to support student mobility. We wish you good luck! (See their Blog here)

 Go!

The next day we met a group of people doing a small chalk graffiti on the town square. Interestingly, part of the writing on the ground was about educating children about environment, so we asked for a small space to write about our trip.

'til we meet again

Final Raid!!

Wednesday the 29th we left Budapest early, our host Viktor went to work and we started pedalling at 8am. Leaving the city wasn’t too bad even though we were initially on the main roads that split into the various highways and motorways out to the country. Changing lanes, going up and down ramps and bridges, keeping an eye on the street signs and traffic lights surrounded by traffic was actually a really fun precision game and we made no mistake (at this point!). We arrived in Keckemet with light tail wind at around 1pm and had a huge lunch – so  good in fact that we had to stop from the bikes after about 20minutes to let the food go down. It’s been a trend on this trip that we always reach some kind of hill within 10minutes after lunch!!! Anyhow, we were moving fast and decided to push till Szeged, 170km in one day… arrived with no maps but luckily a keen cyclist saw us and helped us finding the town’s camp site on the East bank of Tisza river.

Since we had done so much distance Wednesday we thought we'd take some time to see this Hungarian city: most of our Hungarian stage was a race so we would arrive in Serbia on time. We enjoyed the campsite's thermal pool then went sight seeing, had the famous fish soup recommended by Viktor and took off towards Subotica. Barely out of the city we bumped into an american girl, Erin, biking around the world! Unfortunately we couldn't ride together because she was going towards Romania, and we had a rendez-vous with a Serbian rider the next day at mid-day. 

Soon after we parted on route number 5, rain started and we hit the motorway, with no other way towards Subotica, a mere 20 to 30 km away!! We knew there would be a train from Szeged to cross the border, so we back-tracked to the train station, but the next train was Friday morning. The weather was not promising so we decided to go back to the camp site and catch this train the next day. It was a good decision!! Rain all day and super windy. 

Friday was action packed!: short train to the border, train change and border control (finally a stamp in the passports!!!), ride out of Subotica to Backa Topola where we had rendez-vous with Sasha from "Ride for your Rights". Unfortunately he was going slow because of headwind, so we agreed to meet in Sirig instead, closer to Novi Sad - our final destination. This last day was so fast, strong tail wind allowed us to be in top gear all the way, so we arrived in Sirig real fast, waited with ice cream and bolted arrived in Novi Sad quite relaxed. Big thanks to Sasha for guiding us into the city, there we met the coordinator of Ride for your Rights and friends and had a couple of beers to savour the ending... Stunned / stoked.

20km/h !!!

Next post: Novi Sad and handing over our bikes at Ride for your Rights !!