day 6 - Pecs

Day 6
July 8th

We had our first resting day in Pecs. As it turned out, we had no plan, and we would have slept in if it weren't for the burning sun, starting at 7am. Not much to tell about this day. We needed some rest and relaxation, and that was precisely what we had. City tour at will, no pressure.

While some of us took a stroll around town, some others had to work. Andi was a busy bee, looking for a nice place to shoot some scenes, Julian and Sasha were dragged around as well, but Tiago was the lucky one. While on our search for a place with wifi coverage to start publishing some of these stories, we accidentally came across a bike repair / rental, called Velosophie. After a quick chat about who we are and what we're doing, they invited us in, offered some refreshments and let us use their space and wifi to get some work done. Tiago stayed there all afternoon, told them about the project, got some contacts of a few Hungarian cycling activists, and eventually some of our riders came in for a last minute check-up.

Velosophie is part of the LABOR Cooperative. They're not just about the bikes. One of their catchiest operations is light painting buildings. We sign off with a word of thanks to these guys, a sneak peak of some of their work and a piece of advice: check out their website and open your mind!


velosophie újrenyitó 2011. by labor_media

Bike of Honour back in action

So what exactly does the Bike of Honour do? Our little friend tries to meet up with high profile people who support the idea behind our 4000 km bicycle trip. Our goal is to tear down all barriers which still exist for student mobility. So the plan was/is to purposefully meet up with experts in the field of higher education or politicians who support the idea of one united Europe with equall rights for everyone. Every once in a while our white foldable Speedy Gonzales will also be ridden by role models from the field of sports. E.g. once we made it up all the way to Lithuania, our supporter Mindaugas Kuzminskas, will take a ride on it and meet with everyone who will be with us at that stage.

After the tour is finished, the Bike of Honour with all its fame and collected signatures will be auctioned. The raised amount of money will naturally go back to the main sponsors of the tour, the European University Foundation - Campus Europae, which in return will use this sum to finance students going abroad for a second year with the programme and are in financial need due to a lack of national grants.

Our next signatory and Rider of Honour is an expert on higher education. Prof. Germain Dondelinger holds the position of 'Premier Conseiller de Gouvernement” in Luxembourg. Not only is he the coordinator for higher education in the Luxembourg Ministry of culture, higher education and research but he is also the vice-chair of the Bologna Follow-up Group. Thus, he was the right person to answer our line of questions which all Riders of Honour will be faced with.

Check it out:

a message from ESN Spain

... speaking of showing support: the good people of ESN Spain had a little get-together in Vigo recently. They recorded a message on behalf of Ride for your Rights! - homemade, a bit grainy and just what we needed to lift our spirits!



Let us not forget: Ride for your Rights! is about making a change for the better, creating the conditions for a more effective and rewarding system of student mobility in Europe. It's not just about riding a bike, it's about taking a stand for the rights of European students and, in the long run, to make Europe a place of mutual understanding, happiness and prosperity.

Making a change is within our reach. Every single one of us has a voice, and that voice must be heard by our representatives. We brought you a Manifesto for student mobility, we'd like you to read it, sign it and show it to others so they may do the same. This is how we want to show our representatives that student mobility is a concern of many, and an instrument of development that cannot be overlooked.

You can visit our website and find several translations of this Manifesto. If it's not translated in your native language, why not give it a try? "Small" projects like Ride for your Rights!, just as "Big" projects like European integration, demand the participation of all people concerned.

There are a lot of ways you can help and contribute. Don't just "like" it. Do it. For you and for all of us.

Privet St. Petersburg

With one month to go till all Ride for your Rights! bikers meet in Novi Sad for the opening ceremony, local teams are working eagerly to consolidate the programmes and events in their tour towns.

Next to the opening ceremony down south, the closing ceremony in Pburg will also be one of a kind. In order to make sure that all riders will arrive in St. Petersburg safely, George and his crew from St. Petersburg Fixed Gear decided to give us their great support by picking us up from the Finnish border. Cycling on Russian streets and especially cycling in St. Petersburg takes skills, guts and the knowledge which route to take to avoid a visit to the bike clinic.

So what could be better than teaming up with St. Petersburg riders to support them in return and ride for our rights as cyclists on car and traffic dominated streets in Russia together?

Check out the video message and meet the crew



More news on Pburg and all other stops coming soon...

Bike of Honour - Inauguration

Ride for your Rights! is proud to present the first official Rider of Honour to break in the Bike of Honour.



In the spirit of the project we aimed high to begin with and were not disappointed the slightest. MEP Doris Pack, Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education, was our first guest to take the tour's special bicycle for a spin and to sign its frame.

The 'Bike of Honour' serves as a symbolic link of all countries involved in Ride for your Rights! It is supported by an electric motor to express the necessity for an extra boost student mobility is in need of. It is reserved for VIPs and European leaders who share the same vision as we do. 'Riders of Honour' will get to sign the frame after haven taken it for a ride.
The letter box attached to it holds our manifesto and is our moving collection point where you can drop in your ideas for improving student mobility in Europe.



But our ideas and your requests are not everything. Therefore, we will ask all our Riders of Honour to share their vision of an ideal Europe with us and to suggest ways how to realise this. Ride for your Rights! strongly believes that student mobility and innovative exchange programmes such as Campus Europae are the answer to an ideal society in Europe. Watch the following video of Doris Pack to hear from an expert on education and culture what needs to be done and improved in a joint Europe.



Who will be the next Rider of Honour? Stay hooked and find out soon.

Most honourable encounter

'How on earth?' is the question I lately often ask myself. About a year ago I thought to myself what if... what if we got a group of students from different countries together to ride a bicycle across the continent in order to convey a strong message.

One year later and with helping hands from all sides and countries, the first born thoughts have transformed themselves into a firm looking project.

Next to having been nominated for the European Charlegmane Youth Prize, gaining support from top-notch athletes and Olympic Champions, the spirit of Ride for your Rights! has touched great personalities one normally would not encounter in the daily grind.
Not long ago, I had the honour of meeting one of Austria's most inspiring persons alive. Three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize Ms Hildegard Goss-Mayr sat down with me and shared her thoughts on the importance of Human Rights teaching in Higher Education, on the necessity of nonviolent action among the youth and on the positive effects exchange programmes can have on society. If you want to catch a glimpse of the interview check out the following video.



But Hildegard Goss-Mayr was not the only inspirational person I came across lately. Stuart and Gregory from IFOR Austria were the ones making it possible for me to shoot the video and also left a deep impression on me. Generally speaking, it is not exactly normal that you meet such positive thinking guys who offer their help for free only because they believe in the underlying meaning of a project when they normally work with people such as Jane Goodall, Erin Gruwell or Adolfo Perez Esquivel. Have a look at their latest and most ambitious project FairSoul. One of my favorite videos is the one of social activists and musicians Topoke and Dominik Nostitzt who are also based in Vienna.


Topoke - Africa Moto from FairSoul-LIVE...ACT..BE on Vimeo.

What you should know is that you can meet Gregory and Stuart (maybe even Ms Hildegard Goss-Mayr) in Vienna on July 20, when we'll have our workshop on nonviolent action in cooperation with IFOR Austria. Btw, with its aim and constant endeavours for promoting peace and nonviolent action around the globe, IFOR played a vital role in the civil rights movement caused by Dr Martin Luther King back in the days.



My personal conclusion of all this: Positivism attracts positivism!

Julian

PS: A big thank you to everyone contributing to the realisation and success of Ride for your Rights!

Ride for your Rights! goes ROUND

Ever wondered what a cycling critical mass of students has in common with a professional football freestyler born in Guinea?
At first sight - apart from people using round objects for different purposes - not much!



Undoubtedly, Iya Traore is currently the most wanted football freestyler on the planet. He attracts and entertains thousands of people, young and old, tourists and locals, live or on French's got talent. Wherever he puts on his show and demonstrates his unbelievable skills, Iya Traore puts a spell on any spectator and raises awareness galore. In this respect, we found our first match. Ride for your Rights! was intiated to raise awareness and to be seen. Clearly we'd have to do handstands on our bicycles in order to achieve similar results but with a little help of everyone we can gather enough young Europeans who want to be seen and heard.

Our second match can be found when comparing the reasons behind 'the show'. In his biography Iya tells his fans that he had to stop playing for Paris Saint Germain at the top of his career because Iya had to support his father and pursue his studies. Despite these obstacles in his personal life, "With a positive attitude, Iya decided to keep on playing football, but in an original way." His eagerness to make it to the top has rewarded him with holding the Guinness World Record, various invitations to TV shows around the world and even having played for former president Jacques Chirac. So what does Iya do with all the fame? Iya has understood his function as a role model for the youth and he continues passing on his skills and knowledge to youngsters at his own football camps and at his football club back home in Guinea. In brevity, Iya shares his passion and skills for a good reason - he wants to cause a change and help those in need for better conditions.



Ride for your Rights! wishes Iya all the best in the future and is looking forward to meeting him again one day in Paris or maybe even in Guinea.

Julian

PS: On a personal note, when I first met Iya and asked him whether he would like to support Ride for your Rights! I had no idea about his popularity. Only after he had done his show for us and I had looked him up on the web and learnt about his fame, I was truly awestruck at first, then felt extremely honoured, and finally I was full of enthusiasm once again that Ride for your Rights! has great potential for reaching our own goals in Europe.

Māris Štrombergs

Another sportsman from the Baltic is supporting Ride for your Rights!

Māris Štrombergs, from Latvia, is a professional BMX racer with a very impressive list of titles, including that of first Olympic BMX Gold Medalist, which he conquered in Beijing, 2008.

Hardly a coincidence, that we'd seek support from someone who rides a bicycle for a living... But let's leave it to Štrombergs to tell you what he thinks about the project:



Visit our website to see how you can join us and meet our supporters. It's time to get up on your bike and Ride for your Rights!

Mindaugas Kuzminskas

The Ride for your Rights! project is proud to have Mindaugas Kuzminskas as one of its first supporters.

Kuzminskas is a shooting forward for BC Žalgiris (Kaunas, LT), considered a rising star in Lithuanian basketball and drawing attention from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

He's is also a student at Vytautas Magnus University, which is part of the Campus Europae network and is providing valuable support to this project as well.

Julian, the man with the plan, went to interview him. Take heed:



Visit our website to see how you can join us and meet our supporters. It's time to get up on your bike and Ride for your Rights!

International cooperation par excellence - Kaunas, LT

When looking at the issue of international cooperation among European universities one often finds himself surprised. Universities praise themselves all too often with an exhaustive list of partner agreements and cooperations with universities scattered all over the continent. They all seem to be internationally oriented institutions of education serving the needs of their students. But is that really the case? Don't we find ourselves repeatedly drawing the shorter straw? The international cooperation might exist on papers but reality proves a major lack of support for those students who actually want to become European students.

Within the scope of Ride for your Rights!, the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania has proven to be an excellent body of support. Vice-Rector Auksė Balčytienė welcomes all participants who will sign up for stage K of our tour. Her university is supporting our movement 100% and will provide participants with food and board while being there. Watch her statement in the following video clip and keep on following our blog for further updages on all other stages along the way.



Let's ride people!
Julian