Team Rynkeby Day 1: All the way to Paris

 

Wow! We’re off!

Today, the four Team Rynkeby Sweden teams started our 8-day bike trip from Malmö to Paris. Together with the 13 danish teams, we are a total of 700 half-crazy, adventurous people who will be biking our way down through Europe.

I heard of Team Rynkeby for the first time around one and a half years ago. A dear friend of mine had decided to join, and he was asking around, trying to find kindred spirits who maybe would apply to come along with him. He and his whole family had been through a really tough time, where their son had fought and defeated a serious form of cancer. And the main purpose of Team Rynkeby is actually to raise money to Barncancerfonden (the Swedish fund for fighting childhood cancer) and its Danish equivalence.

I couldn’t join for 2011, but after I heard of Team Rynkeby’s fantastic trip to Paris last summer I was really excited, and decided to apply for 2012. And here I am, as member of Team Rynkeby Täby.

After too few hours of sleep, I was woken by double alarms around 04.24, just barely half an hour before I had to catch the bus to Stockholm. My bike already started its trip to Malmö last night in truck together with all the other bikes, so I managed to leave home without that much trouble since I made sure to pack everything using my checklists last night.

The bus for Malmö with the Stockholm teams left from Arla’s head office around 06.00, and everyone in both teams was really happy despite the early hour. I managed to sleep all the way to Jönköping, and then a get a few hours of quality time with my new lover.

In Malmö, Jägersro, we changed clothes, rearranged our luggage, and saddled up for the first short ride to the city of Lund and the Barn- och ungdomssjukhuset (a children’s hospital). Up until the visit, it had only been something on the agenda - a couple of speeches, and then off to Trelleborg.

Instead, it was so much more than I was prepared for. We were recieved by a big crowd with cheering and applause, and amongst the ones waiting were a lot of kids - cancer patients - with their parents. It is really intense to meet these children, and instead of focusing on the sadness and hardships that comes with cancer (since it nearly made me cry), I tried to focus on how Barncancerfonden are able to support projects that leads to better rates of curing and helping the kids and their families.

After that, we had a wonderful ride through the Skåne countryside to Svedala, where we probably broke some kind of world record in how many bikers you can fit into a McDonald’s restaurant.

And after that, a short ride down to Trelleborg and a longer wait to get on the ferry and to go get our assigned rooms. But now where here, and I’ll have to get some sleep before we get to Germany.

PS. Yes Petra, we’re going All the way to Paris :)