I believe that anything is possible. As a triathlete and a single mother of two I´ve learned that many of us are capable of much more than we ever thought.
With Ride4Respect I want to challenge myself and at the same time give my contribution to the movement of making this world a better place for all its inhabitants.
The goal is to get from Vienna to Hawaii by bike, trying to make as little negative impact as possible on the environment. I hope to meet many of you people on my journey and to have a lot of interesting conversations through which we can inspire each other and help one another to raise awareness for more respect towards all life on this planet.
To make the project more challenging and to stay on track I´ve set up some guidelines concluded in three rules which can be found here.
The idea for this project came to me during my stay in Spain for the Ironman 70.3 in Marbella.
After going through a personal loss I had taken a step back to look at my life, at our social values and our world as such. This got me thinking and I started to read and inform myself which led to many discussions with various people around me.
I finally saw the connection between our current social values and some of the problems in our wold today; problems like hunger in poorer areas, exploitation of people and animals, disruption of land and seas, shrinking biodiversity and raising western diseases. These values have led to an exploitation of resources beyond their natural availability. The problem can be concluded in the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” However, in my daily discussions with people around me, I realized that awareness and information is lacking. But Gandhi also had a solution in mind: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” And that is just what my mind is now set up on doing, through this project Ride4Respect, the idea that was born there in Marbella in April this year, 2019.
But I can´t do this without your help. This project is also about showing that the seemingly impossible can come true if we work together. Only by your support will I be able to manage the challenges I will face throughout the journey. Friendly faces, a warm meal, hot coffee, a dry couch now and then and good conversations would help more than you can imagine.
I hope that the interactions we´ll have throughout my journey will spread on the common social media channels and inspire many, many more. Let´s reach out together!