Kait and Ashlyn: Eurovelo 6 with a Purpose (Part 1)

Today, we bring you an interview with two ladies, Kait and Ashlyn, who depart on their journey to bike from France to Romania on the Eurovelo 6 on May 11th. We are excited to see how their trip progresses, and JZ and I are totally taking notes for whenever we can manage 4 months off to do this one summer.

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Kait and I have known each other for a couple of years, meeting at work in Charlotte. She was the new kid in town, and I was really cool and knew where all the best food trucks parked. We bonded over vegan food blogs (even though neither of us are vegan), the demise of relationships, and then running. Kait and I became running partners and ran two or three days a week for several months (through a brutally cold North Carolina winter). She is a great accountability counterpart for me, because I always tried to cancel our runs the night before, but she was gung ho. And then, when she woke up in the morning and it was freezing (our cut off point for not running was technically 20F/-6C, but if I was already awake we dipped into the teens) and would try and cancel the morning of the run, but I don’t check my phone. It was an accountability match made in heaven. 

Anyways, when I moved overseas Kait told me about this epic adventure she was secretly planning: saving money, buying a bike, learning emergency first aid, and eventually embarking on this trip with Ashlyn. But they can provide more (entertaining) information:

Tell us a little bit about yourselves. Where are you from, how did you meet?

K: I originally hail from Raleigh, North Carolina. I come from a big, loud, family of six (you know who you are), all of whom have helped shape me into the person I am today. I was a strange kid, weird middle-schooler, and suspect high-schooler. To be fair, I feel as though that may, a little bit, be everyone’s story whether they admit to it or not. Who looks back and is like – ‘Yep. Middle school. Crushed that.’? If that is you, I’d actually really like to meet you and maybe your parents and take notes on how that was achieved.

Anyway. Ash and I met at Broughton High School. The timeline is a bit fuzzy, but luckily we have our official friendship documentation, as decreed by Facebook: January 2007. A day month that will live in infamy. Especially because I wasn’t allowed to have Facebook at that time, and Ash helped me to create my account. The start of a beautiful, rule-following friendship. We somewhat lost track of one another in college — we’re actually a bit unclear about those years, but fast forward and we’ve rekindled our friendship, planned a bike trip, and are spending 85 consecutive days together. In the same tent. It’s going to be awesome.

A: For my part, I was a military kid, so I grew up on the move. We came to North Carolina after my dad retired from the Navy, and my parents have been here for over a decade now. My brother (Dane) and I are really close because of all the moving we did when we were young. If you think about it, every two years or so, we essentially shed all our friends in a move and were left to entertain ourselves until school started, we joined a new team, etc.

Skipping ahead to high school, Broughton was my third new school in the three years I’d lived in Raleigh, and I was definitely the quiet, bookish type of introvert – the kind completely lacking in social skills. Point being, I really couldn’t tell you how Kait and I became friends because we’re about as different as two people can be. I haven’t lived in NC since high school, which means that our friendship has been long-distance, so to speak, for about seven years. I don’t know why we thought 85 days together would be a good idea. Things were going so well!

Have you always been interested in biking? Who’s idea was it to take on this challenge? Has anyone inspired you (bloggers, personal friends etc)?

K: This trip will be our first long distance biking trip. We’ve never attempted a trip of this caliber before, biking or otherwise. Biking was something that I had learned to do as a kid, and then kind of forgotten about until we started considering the possibilities for Europe. We first saw the idea on Almost Fearless, where Christine and her husband were going to bike the same trail with their two children. We thought – if they can do it, we can do it! So we began to plan and prepare and procure bikes so that we could one day do a trip of our own. And that day has come up faster than we expected.

A: Almost Fearless was definitely the initial inspiration for this trip. We were eagerly following their progress on the blog when, maybe 3 weeks into Christine’s trip, she and her family kind of threw up their hands and threw in the towel. They took a train somewhere and kicked their heels up, all done. That took a bit of the wind out of our sails, but we kept scouring the net for information about the route and came across a blogger named James on the forum Crazy Guy on a Bike. He did the entire west-east journey and documented it pretty well, and we’ve probably gone back to his site at least a hundred times to check out his pictures and get local scoop on the trip.

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Tell us about your upcoming trip. What section(s) of the eurovelo are you planning on riding? Where exactly are you planning on going/estimated duration of trip? Are you planning any extended stops along the way?

K: There’s a network of 15 Eurovelo routes that criss-cross throughout Europe – we’re taking the Eurovelo 6, which travels from the Atlantic Ocean in France to the Black Sea in Romania. We’re planning on riding the majority of the route, with a bit of deviation in Romania that we can get into later. The trip should take us about three months, and we’ve budgeted a few days at the end so that we can re-acclimate ourselves to appropriate human tasks like showering every day and not eating all the food we can find.

A: The trip as a whole will begin on May 11th and end on August 4th and will take us through France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania. We’ll travel through a lot of capital cities (Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, etc.) so we’re already planning on spending a few extra days in those cities. We also have a big stop planned in Switzerland and another one near the end of our trip, in Romania.

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I heard something about you adding on a charity component to your ride. Can you tell us more about that?

A: Absolutely! That’s the source of all our *wink-Romania-wink* hints. We recently linked up with a local Romainian woman, Adriana Henderson, who has been running a very small camp, deep in the heart of Romania, for children suffering with chronic illnesses. Adriana has been doing a lot of really good work through a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization she founded called S.T.A.R. (“Start Thinking About Romanian”) Children’s Relief. This camp that we’re supporting, Camp Ray of Hope, is best-described in the organization’s own words:

Camp Ray of Hope is dedicated to providing a life changing camping experience to children suffering from a serious illness. Our purpose is to enrich their lives by creating memorable and fun adventures that are empowering and exciting. At Camp Ray of Hope children are free to explore, create, and thrive and recognize that the time spent together making friends is the greatest luxury.

Located in Romania, Camp Ray of Hope offers children living with hemophilia, cancer and other serious illnesses something they don’t get to have every day – a chance to experience what it is to be a child. These children enjoy the camaraderie of new friends they relate to. They share activities with these friends while learning more about their condition, how to treat it and how to cope with it. These activities were once a dream for these children, but now become a reality as they are assisted by a caring and attentive staff from around the world.

K: We all saw an opportunity to join forces and raise awareness about and funds for the children of this camp. Our trip is fully self-supported and self-funded, which means that any and all money we raise on our bike ride will go directly to the camp. Ultimately, we’re hoping to gather enough donations to provide a small group of the camp’s terminally ill children with a trip to Disneyland, Paris. Any and all donations are helpful, and even if you can’t donate, getting the word out is great too! To donate, visit our GoFundMe page.

A: Since joining forces with Camp Ray of Hope, we’ve also rejiggered most of our itinerary so that we can pedal in during the last days of camp to meet the children, staff, and medical professionals who will be following our journey and cheering us on. The Romanian terrain will be the toughest we see on the whole trip, but we’re determined to make it happen… even if that means we hop off the bikes for a bit and catch a train.

Thanks Kaitlin and Ashlyn!

Look for our follow-up with a second post detailing their preparation, equipment, and costs next week.