or: how a New Year’s resolution became a world-wide sporting charity project.

We have all been there – the New Year has just begun and with it those New Year resolutions are there again. With one’s family or circle of friends looking on, one can hardly escape the charm of promising to doing everything differently, or at least doing something better. That’s what happened to a small group of Vodafone employees, who on the 2nd of January 2008 sat together at lunch in the work’s canteen and thought about what they should decide to do differently or better. And so the idea was born to do something better for their health; to go from Dusseldorf to England – on bicycles. Naturally not on their own; better with as many people as possible. And another thought came to the founding fathers: if all these people were going to do such a thing, then why not combine the self-interest in doing something for one’s health with the chance of doing it for charity and collect donations from family and friends. It was agreed that the donations were to go 100% towards a charitable organisation so that corporate sponsors needed be found to cover the costs of the event. A working title was quickly found for the project – the Global Biking Initiative, or GBI for short. A title that reflected the global nature the project took on as colleagues from other countries got to hear of it and asked if they could join in. On June 1st, 2008 63 participants from 5 countries started on their journey from Düsseldorf, Germany to Newbury in England, a trek of over 720 km to be covered by bike in 6 stages over 6 days. The journey took them from Düsseldorf via Maastricht, Brussels, Lille, Canterbury and London and then on to their ultimate goal, the Vodafone headquarters in Newbury, where the 63 participants were received with great enthusiasm  from the home crowd. That initial tour collected a total of 23,630 Euros for charity.

GBI 2008: First run with 63 participants

After the overwhelming triumph of the first tour the founders, gathered around the idea’s initiator, Michael Leuenberger, decided to further develop and to professionally organise this successful event. The charitable club Global Biking Initiative e.V. was founded at the beginning of 2009 and officially entered into Dusseldorf’s registry of clubs by the local court on 1st of April 2009. The association’s purpose is to organise and stage events with which participants collect donations for charitable institutions in their respective home countries.

The first tour was scarcely over before the planning for the next one had already started. This time the organisers had thought of a particular incentive for their cyclists: from Milan, Italy, over the Gotthard pass in the alps, Switzerland and then on to Dusseldorf. This tour was intended to be something special. And so it was! 212 participants from 8 different countries and all of them, every single one, made it over the pass – a real “highlight”. Many participants, for example those from Egypt, not only saw snow for the first time but they actually cycled through it.

The association’s governing committee, or as it is called within the GBI the Tour Board, had planned everything down to the smallest detail. For example the person charged with selecting the route had driven along each of the stages himself to make certain they were suitable. Others travelled to Switzerland and Italy to check out the accommodation and to make local arrangements. One of the results was that the participants came to enjoy the rare and exciting opportunity to spend the night in an underground army hospital and a civil protection air raid bunker. A whole posse of vehicles accompanied the cyclists to “secure” the route and look after the riders. More details: repair specialists for technical support en route; a masseur for a sport massage to soothe the aches and pains after a hard day’s ride; or a pick-up truck to pick up those unfortunate participants who for various reasons had to prematurely end that day’s stage.

The Tourboard for the GBI 2010: Michael Hulfelschulte, Ingo Schneider, Ulrich Böhm, Michael Leuenberger, Michael Bastian, Gabriela Filova, Dirk Rheydt, Hartmut Genz (f.l.t.r.)

The tour was so well received that more than 100 people wanted to pre-register for the next one. So the GBI was to roll again in 2010, this time from Prague to Dusseldorf. This time there were 260 participants from 13 countries, Germany, Egypt, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, the UK, Ireland, Rumania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Turkey, who decided to pedal their way along the route. And by doing so collected more than 210,000 Euros for charity. For the last two hours of the eight-day odyssey all of the participants cycled together as one large group from Essen to the banks of the river Rhine, accompanied by their own police escort, to be received in Dusseldorf in good GBI tradition by thousands of cheering family, friends and fans and celebrate their success at a welcoming party.

Tourdirector Michael Leuenberger hands over the donation check over 211.000.- EUR to Markus Seidel from Off-Road-Kids and Franz Stute from Wünsch-Dir-Was, who take over the check as representatives for all supported charities worldwide.

In 2011 under the patronage of the Minister President of Nordrhine-Westfalia, Mrs. Hannelore Kraft, the tour started on the 1st of May in Amsterdam and finish on the 6Th of May in Dusseldorf after having passed Rotterdam, Antwerpen, Gent, Dirdrech and Nijmegen. To solve the logistics problem of such a tour the riders had 3 hotel boats following each stage on the local waterways and which moor to wait for the riders as they arrive at that stage’s destination. As always the stages were on average around 100km long. In 2011 will be 300 riders taking part with people for the first time from Qatar, South Africa, Ghana, Poland and Luxembourg  - taking the total number of participating countries to 18 – and all of them had the single goal of beating the sum collected for charity in 2010!

For the very first time, we raised in 2011 with almost 300 cyclists a quarter of a million euros - in 18 countries!

Through their spirit and élan, their sporting idealism and their heart the riders, organisers, corporate sponsors and helpers have to date the GBI has been able to collect almost 600,000 Euros for charities across the world such as Unicef, Off Road Kids or SOS Kinderdörfer to name but a few.

In 2012 we will cycle from Oslo back to Düsseldorf and we will grow again in multiple dimensions: more than 20 countries, 400 participants and more than quarter of a million raised fund in 2012!