The fifth day – final stage on the bike

Bad Vilbel. 03-May-2014, 09h00. Partly sunny, partly cloudy. Perfect conditions for the last 35 km of our bicycle tour leading us from Bad Vilbel to Frankfurt together with several hundred Rotarians from all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Here we go:

At the start:

On the road again…:

A well known face from old Rotaract days…:

RDG was also present:

On the last stage, our RI Director Gideon Peiper joined the cyclists from all districts.

We did it: 505 km on the bicycle in just five days! We still cannot believe that we were crazy enough to take this challenge and lucky enough to survive it!

It was a great experience for all the participants and created a lot of team spirit. We have put a lot of live into our Rotary life… 🙂 🙂 🙂

Join us in our endeavour, take the challenge and match our total distance with your donation in order to support our good cause as well: the “End Polio Now” initiative and the charity bicycle tour by contributing to the donation account of the Rotary Club Munich International at Flessabank München:

IBAN: DE26793301110000770011
BIC: FLESDEMM
Beneficiary: RC Munich-International
Text: Donation for Charity Bicycle Tour / End Polio Now

The fourth day

Miltenberg. Friday, 02-May-2014, 09h30. The weather forecast is good: cloudy and dry. No club visits planned for today. Therefore, we can start a bit later for the planned 86 km transfer stage from Miltenberg to Bad Vilbel.

Making new friends on our way:

… and celebrating friendship within the team that survived the last 480 km together. Nevertheless, our average speed today is 21.8 km/h.

Rotary in action means service above self: Together, we can overcome any obstacle!

Surprise, surprise: heavy rain ;-( Everything gets soaking wet within seconds…

However, tomorrow for the final stage from Bad Vilbel to Frankfurt the weather is said to be much better. After 86 km today and around 480 km since Tuesday we are totally exhausted.

Good night!

The third day

What goes up, must come down

Kloster Roggenburg. Thursday, 01-May-2014, 07h15. Cold and cloudy weather. The rest of the world is still sleeping on a public holiday, but the RC Weißenhorn is picking us up with a large delegation in order to guide us to their breakfast meeting.

On the 48 km from Weißenhorn to Dillingen along the Donau at high speed:

Tough 39 km from Dillingen to Nördlingen…

Hard working president… 🙂

Arrival in Nördlingen. Totally exhausted…

Besides our secret service style tour bus just before the intercity meeting in Nördlingen

A nice and cosy hotel in Miltenberg is the perfect end for the fourth day of a quite exhausted team and everybody is looking forward to taking a nap!

The second day

Neuburg / Donau. Wednesday, 30-Apr-2014, 07h30. Fog, but no rain – against all forecasts! Perfect conditions for a fast 60 km ride…

We take any challenge to end polio now:

Even with some obstacles like blocked roads or unwanted off-road experience we keep a good average pace on our way to Friedberg:

Broken chain: this causes a serious delay!

Late arrival in Friedberg: 200 elementary school students, their teachers and the press are awaiting us.

Almost fully „recharged“ cyclists:

On the road again…

At the zoo in Augsburg:

The stage to Schwabmünchen causes us a lot of trouble due to the strong wind blowing against us! But, we had a very warm welcome at the polio information booth.

On the way to the intercity meeting in Mindelheim, but not yet exhausted… 🙂

On our way to Thannhausen by night… (photo or video to come later)

Spring ball in Thannhausen. We dance for muscle relaxation… 🙂

President’s statistic 6 803 kcal in just two days…

The first day

Munich, Tuesday 29-Apr-2014. Only slight rain. A better than expected start for our bicycle tour…

Our polio information booth at Sendlinger Tor:

Last preparations for the tour:

The start with 10 cyclists:

On the road:

Spontaneous visit at Lowa in order to collect a donation:

Arrival in Neuburg / Donau:

The team

Life is like riding a bicycle

Albert Einstein

Therefore, why not using a bicycle when trying to put life into our Rotary life with a real challenge that goes at or beyond the personal limits?

We, the six cyclists of the Rotary Club Munich-International started already a long time ago with our preparation in order to be ready to meet our challenge now…

No one of us has done a distance of 500 km in five days on the bicycle before. Therefore, some of us tried to prepare of the tour with some intensive training on the trails around Munich – though never forgetting the real target: the eradication of polio.

Are you ready to match our 500 km challenge? If you donate just € 0.10 per km your donation would sum up to € 50. These would be complemented with the double amount, another € 100, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These € 150 could be used i.e. for the vaccine needed to immunize 300 children!

We regard this definetely as a good opportunity to put life into our Rotary lives…!

IBAN: DE26793301110000770011
BIC: FLESDEMM
Beneficiary: RC Munich-International
Text: Donation for Charity Bicycle Tour / End Polio Now

The challenge

The idea of a star ride by bicycle under the label “Rotary bewegt” in favour of „End Polio Now“ inspired us, the cyclists of our club, to target not only a small and convenient regional tour around Munich but a real challenge: from Rotary Club to Rotary Club over the full distance between Munich and Frankfurt – around 500 km through upper Bavaria and Swabia in just 5 days! No one of us has done such a distance on the bicycle before. Therefore, it is a real challenge for all of us…! We will keep you posted regularly how we will meet that challenge.

Are you ready to match our challenge – i.e. with € 0.10 per km adding up to a total of € 50? Please let us know whether and how you would like to match our challenge…! You can find the account details for your donation below.

We will take the opportunity to join a group from our sister district 1841 and go from Rotary Club to Rotary Club in order to support -beyond our own Polio information booth- their local initiatives in favour of „End Polio Now“ on our way to Frankfurt. Please find here our tour plan:

29-Apr-2014: 110 km
15h00 – 20h00	Munich (Sendlinger Tor) to Neuburg a.d.D.: 110 km

30-Apr-2014: 156 km
07h30 – 11h00	Neuburg to Friedberg i.B.: 56 km
12h00 – 13h00	Friedberg to Augsburg: 9 km
14h00 – 16h00	Augsburg to Schwabmünchen: 28 km
17h00 – 19h00	Schwabmünchen to Mindelheim: 33 km
20h30 – 23h00	Mindelheim to Thannhausen: 30 km

01-May-2014: 115 km
06h30 – 08h00	Thannhausen to Weißenhorn: 27 km
09h00 – 12h00	Weißenhorn to Dillingen: 48 km
12h30 – 15h00	Dillingen to Nördlingen: 40 km
16h30 – 20h00	Transfer from Nördlingen to Miltenberg by bus/train

02-May-2014: 86 km
08h00 – 17h00	Miltenberg to Bad Vilbel: 86 km

03-May-2014 „Final Stage“: 35 km
10h00 – 13h00	Final stage from Bad Vilbel (Bahnhof) to Frankfurt (Opernplatz) with more than 500 participants: 35 km
13h00 – 16h00	Central event in Frankfurt (Opernplatz): Reception by the regional prime minister, information booths, music

We regard this definetely as a good opportunity to put life into our Rotary lives…!

IBAN: DE26793301110000770011
BIC: FLESDEMM
Beneficiary: RC Munich-International
Text: Donation for Charity Bicycle Tour / End Polio Now

The good cause

Just a few decades ago Polio threatened the life of thousands of children every year or caused lifelong severe disability. The specific danger of the Polio virus lies in its relatively long incubation time. Combined with the ever increasing mobility of modern societies this makes the virus jump across any populations or borders. Huge efforts have been taken over the decades to eradicate Polio.

Back in 1985, Rotary decided to eradicate Polio as a longterm target. Since then Rotarians from all countries have contributed more than $ 1 billion to this target. Rotary International with its more than 34,000 clubs has teamed up with the WHO and other organizations in order to form the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Finally, the target was almost reached: Through massive vaccination campaigns the annual number of new infections could be heavily lowered from around 350,000 to just 233 in 2012 in just three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

According to the latest WHO information Polio can be eradicated finally if the vaccination campaign will be continued until 2018 with its current speed. However, $ 1.5 billion are still missing in order to ensure that this target can be reached. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who donated already more than $ 400 million has challenged all Rotarians with its promise to match every dollar donated by Rotary with two more dollars over the next five years. This will bring the initiative close to the target: End Polio Now!

As concrete action for gathering donations the German speaking Rotary Districts agreed to organize under the label „Rotary bewegt“ a star ride by bicycle to Frankfurt / Main where a central event with more than 500 participating Rotarians will take place on May 3rd, 2014.

This is definetely a good opportunity to put life into our Rotary lives…!

You might want to support our good cause as well: the „End Polio Now“ initiative and the charity bicycle tour by donating to the donation account of the Rotary Club Munich International at Flessabank München:

IBAN: DE26793301110000770011
BIC: FLESDEMM
Beneficiary: RC Munich-International
Text: Donation for Charity Bicycle Tour / End Polio Now