“I’ve embarked on many adventures in recent years, but this was by far the most emotional one. The support and gratitude of Ukrainians was significant and that gave me a lot of strength to carry on”, Merten said in conversation with RTL.
Long adventures of this kind are a passion for the journalist and cyclist who is originally from Trier in Germany. He set off from Luxembourg to reach Kyiv, a trip of 2,725 kilometres, which he managed to do in the space of 42 days.
Merten did not head for Ukraine just for the fun of it, he did it as part of his ‘Charity Bike Tour’, which raised €3,500. And the money will go towards a very special project as the cyclist wants to enable Ukrainian children to go on holiday camps away from the war.
When he set off from Place de la Constitution on 1 July, Merten had no idea how enthusiastically his initiative would be received. As he pedalled through Winnyzja, some 270 kilometres from Kyiv, he was joined by an entire peloton.
The human aspect of Merten’s initiative quickly took precedence over the sporting aspect of his journey. “Feeling the support and what it meant to the locals for me to make the journey from Luxembourg to Kiev are emotions that will probably never leave me”, he explained.
Merten says he did not really feel any fear despite the circumstances. But although he had made sure to stay away from the combat zones when planning his journey, the conflict remained ever so present in all his exchanges with locals.
According to the cyclist, there was not a single Ukrainian on his path who did not know someone who had gone to the front or someone who had died in the conflict.
Full details of Michael’s adventure can be found here: www.michael-merten.eu.
