Three inspirational De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) students are pedalling their way across five European countries in twenty-one days in a bid to raise funds for Square Mile India.
Milan Berkin, Daniel Keigher and Rytis Baranuskas, will embark on a gruelling charity cycle next month travelling a total of 1,185 miles.
Raring to go, the three DMU students sport their Deliveroo gear. (Picture by Konstantinos Gavaliatsis)
The marathon road trip will see them begin their tour in Albania on Wednesday 31 May, before cycling across Italy, Slovenia and Croatia with a scheduled end date on Tuesday 20 June in Budapest, Hungary.
Milan a second year Music Technology BSc (Hons) student said: “We were going to do the trip anyway and were just doing it for fun, but decided it was worth doing it for charity too.
“It feels great to be doing something which will be fun, but will also be benefiting others, especially with Square Mile India which means so much to DMU.”
Last year the students did something similar riding from Leicester to Hungary and Lithuania raising money for Greenpeace and a Hungarian hospice in a challenge labelled ‘The Long Delivery’.
Last year the cyclists raised money for Greenpeace and a Hungarian hospice
RELATED NEWS
Marathon charity ride for swim and triathlon team
Former rower switches boats for bikes to form new cycling club
Volleyball player scoops national volunteer award
The students aren’t training for this ride, but their current work for Deliveroo is giving them the fitness they’ll need for the challenging journey.
Rytis a third year Music Technology BSc (Hons) student, said: “In 2017 so far, I have totalled around 1,862 kilometres with my work. I reckon I can take that as adequate training.”
The threesome will be funding the trip off of their own backs, but have taken everything into consideration to keep the cost to a minimum.
They will start in Albania as it is cheaper to fly there, take a ferry over the Adriatic Sea to Lecce in Italy before heading north to the Slovenian border on their journey to Hungary.
Tricky terrain on their last marathon cycle across Europe
En-route they will be staying in free accommodation through couchsurfing.org, a website where people can host travellers free of charge.
On the trip they will be joined by a fourth rider, Fernando Lambert a Geology student at Moorhead University in Minnesota, USA.
Daniel Keigher, a second year Music Technology and Innovation (now Creative Music Technology) student, said: “We will be documenting our trip as we go through video and a daily Facebook blog.
“We will be promoting Square Mile India and hoping to raise as much money as possible.
“We will be meeting a lot of people on the journey and we will be telling them about what we’re doing too, so we’ll be spreading the word.”
The trip will take the students 1,862 miles to Hungary from Albania, via Italy. (Picture by Konstantinos Gavaliatsis)
Cycling time will begin early each morning and will finish at 4pm giving them time to recover and be at their destination before dark. To complete the ride in the scheduled time they will need to be completing around 100km per day.
When asked about how much money the think they can raise, Milan said: “We don’t expect to raise much money at all, but we’re happy as long as we have fun doing it.
“Raising funds for Square Mile India wasn’t something we thought of originally, but we wanted to give something back.
“We hope to make this a tradition and do something similar in different locations every year.”
To donate visit the teams Just Giving page.
Posted on Monday 24 April 2017