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