Bicycle Ride Across Lithuania

On the 8^th of May three colleagues from the United Kingdom, John Gwilliams, Alan Quinlan and Nick Miles, arranged a seven-day bike ride across Lithuania, aiming not only to pedal 404 miles and to establish a connection between the two countries, but also, to stop in Širvintos, Panevėžys, Radviliškis, Šiauliai, Tauragė and Kaunas to visit the children of Rugutė and their families that live there.

 

The daring cyclists rode even more miles than they had expected, i.e. about 466 miles during the whole week.

 

The cyclists visited twelve children that Childhood Cancer Fund Rugutė is taking care of: Samanta, Naglis, Ugnė, Titas, Urtė, Julija, Kornelija, Liepa, Ignas, Diana, Aistė and Lukas. Both, children and their parents welcomed the arriving cyclists with great joy.

 

The participants of the ride spent an unusually warm and cozy evening in Šiauliai, in the yard of Titas’ family house. They listened to some beautiful music: Titas played the traditional Lithuanian instrument birbynė, and his sister Beatričė sang and played the traditional instrument kanklės. The short concert was concluded by Julija who fascinated everybody by her wonderful kanklės music. After the concert everybody had dinner of soup that Titas’ father cooked on a bonfire. Having had some rest after the long ride, the cyclists played basketball with the children. Although the cyclists did not feel like saying good-bye, the time came long after dark, when they had no choice but to go have some good rest before the next day of the ride.

 

On the fourth day of the ride the cyclists stopped in Tauragė where they had a special opportunity to visit the Lithuanian Grand Duke Kestutis Motorized Infantry Battalion deployed in Sakalinės village. They were welcomed by Kornelija’s dad, Sergeant-Major Ričardas Dapkus, and the Chaplain, Major Remigijus Monstvilas. The guests had a tour around the battalion and got to know about the service and living conditions of the soldiers. In spite of their fatigue from having biked long hours, the cyclists tried out all the training machines in the local gym with great enthusiasm. The cozy dinner, afterwards, allowed the guests to take a short break before the last (and especially difficult) hours on the bikes.

 

On the last day of the ride, the three cyclists, escorted by a group of supporters, arrived at Rugutė’s Home to get acquainted with the activities of our fund. In the afternoon our guests admired the old-town of Vilnius and learned some of the history of Lithuania.

 

During the bike ride people donated funds for children with oncological diseases.

 

From the bottom of our hearts we thank John Gwilliams, Alan Quinlan and Nick Miles
for implementing the noble idea, for bravely accepting the challenge, and, most importantly,
for the warmth and love they shared with our children. Your visit in Lithuania did not only provide lots of joy to our children, but also proved that human abilities are limitless.
 
We say a sincere thank you to all those who wished fair wind to the cyclists,
and all those who donated for this campaign and otherwise supported the noble initiative.
 
We thank Gintaras Dakanis for organizing and coordinating the campaign,
and for every kind of help.
 
We thank the guide Lolita Kuprevičienė for the tour around the old-town of Vilnius.

 

 

Photo Gallery – Bike Ride Across Lithuania

 

 

The author of the bike ride idea and the cyclist John Gwilliams shares his impressions about the bike ride and gives pieces of advice for the future cyclists:

 

When I first conceived the idea to support a Lithuanian charity I had several reservations but was determined to carry through with the idea. I’ve tried to group these for clarity. 

 

Training / Ability / Team

 

The first group of concerns was around fitness, ability and team composition. I was asking a lot of myself and any fellow riders that wanted to participate and received lots of feedback from various folk (long distance riders and “couch potatoes” alike) which alternated from “You’re mad!” to “What a great idea!”. Hearing “you’re mad” from cyclists who have done long distance events before was a little unnerving, but it did not deter me and I let the positive feedback keep me motivated throughout the long days of training.

 

In the early days of the idea I had lots of people who volunteered to join in and do the ride. One of the hardest things to deal with was listening to the range of reasons why they had to withdraw. Everyone had perfectly reasonable excuses, from Pregnancy in one case to timing / cost issues in others. Watching the numbers shrink was a little concerning, but we eventually arrived at our stable team of myself, Nick and Alan, and it was obvious that we three would be the final team with several weeks to spare.

 

In terms of training, when I started this activity I was little more than a “couch potato” myself and had not been on a bike in 20 years. Therefore training plans and development were essential to getting myself to a level where this activity was achievable. I started training 9 months before the event, having bought my first bike and managed to ride a paltry 1.5 miles!!! I pushed onwards and was soon able to stay in the saddle for 20 - 30 miles (on road) although I was tired at the end of these rides. I then did a few off road courses to build my strength and achieved a 30 mile off road course in Yorkshire by October 2010 (3 months in) as well as several shorter trips up the Malvern Hills near my home.

 

Training over winter was hard, but I had some excellent days out and was, by now, pushing regular 30 mile trips. Some of these sessions were done whilst the temperature was below 0 C, indeed. I remember one morning where I had to kick my derailleur to unfreeze it. :-)

 

In February I did my first truly long distance ride and covered 76 miles from my home to our Radbroke Hall office in Cheshire (near Manchester). Whilst I did not manage to cycle the whole distance (used a train to remove 20 miles and give me a break), I did arrive at my destination in good form and the sun was still in the sky. :-)

 

At this point I was feeling very confident and spent more time ensuring that the team got together as much as possible (not easy given our hectic social and work calendars).

 

But we got there and by the last week I felt confident that we were good to go. 

 

Terrain / Route

 

Another key concern was a lack of knowledge about the terrain, countryside and language. Lots of friends and colleagues said “Don’t worry, Lithuania’s flat! That’ll help!” and were still saying this whilst we were riding. :-)

 

If you think Lithuania is flat, my advice is – “Get a bike and cycle around it!” :-)

 

Without the support for Gintaras the setup and logistics of this event would have been almost unachievable. His local knowledge and support was invaluable and I honestly do not think we would have enjoyed it as much without his support and the huge commitment that he put in. As far as I am concerned he was the “4^th Rider” and did as much as the actual cyclists, if not more.

 

Not having to worry about hotels / route (once we were cycling) was a great relief and having the bus with us, as support / guidance, was invaluable – especially in terms of carrying supplies / water and enabling us to carry the bikes on the few occasions when it was impossible to cycle on the roads.

 

Weather

 

Not having spent more than a few days in Lithuania (ever) it was impossible to get a handle on the weather and what to expect. As it happens the “Rugute Charm” worked well and we had mostly excellent weather. I do not think this will happen every time we do this event (and I hope to do more starting next year!), so we owe a lot to the kind weather for the distance we were able to cover and it is always a major consideration when planning kit requirements for the event.

 

Schedules

 

When you are 1500 miles away in the UK, it is hard to now whether average speeds and timetables are realistic, and how likely it is that you can time meetings with people accurately. It was easy to think that constant meetings and events would impact the ride, however I can honestly say that they made the ride that much more real and gave us the opportunity to put a face to the Captains and their families that Rugute supports.

 

Future riders need to accept that these meetings are a valuable part of the ride. On an evening when you have ridden 100 miles, you really only want to lie down and drink a cold beer, the last thing on your mind is stopping at the road site to meet a family, visiting someone’s house or going for dinner in the officer’s mess. However, these were some of the best moments of the trip. All the Captains we met reminded us why we were there and inspired us to do more and go further.

 

Spares / Repairs / Maintenance

 

In bringing our own bikes over (especially Alan’s and mine) we ran the risk of not finding spares in country. As it happens we were fortunate in that we had no serious accidents (except Quinlan Corner!) and only one puncture. I do not expect to have this much good fortune in all future events. It was notable that when we did go looking for cycling shops we had great difficulty finding them and when we did locate them we found that they did not really cater for sports bikes like Alan’s and mine. There seems to be more emphasis on mountain bikes and hybrids which could cause a problem if we had had any major issues.

 

Supplies

 

I cannot stress too strongly the importance of getting the water and energy supplements right. I found the whole event easier than expected but do not put this down entirely to training. I stuck to a strict supplement regime and made sure I brought plenty of drink supplement and energy bars / gels with me. These helped boost my energy levels whilst in the saddle and made the days easier to handle. :-)

 

Remember you can burn up to 10000 calories a day on events like this.

 

Road Conditions

 

Prior to coming over we were very concerned about the quality of roads across the country. As it happens, with a few exceptions, the roads were very good and some were perfect. However there were a few exceptions to note. :-)

 

1. South of Vilnius (in the suburbs) and West of Kaunas the roads were in a terrible state and made cycling unpleasant at best. :-) Lots of pot holes / cracks. The descent into Vilnius from the South is one that Alan will remember (and dread) for many years to come. :-)

 

2. Manhole covers / drains. There were some very interesting drain covers that were potentially lethal for cyclists (narrow gaps the right width for a cycle wheel), deep drains set a foot below the road level near the curbs, non-existant drain covers in some parts (or very flimsy at best). We built a good routine of calling out the major obstacles as we passed so that the guys behind were forewarned.

 

3. Unsuitable roads. Some of the roads do not permit cyclists (like a UK motorway – e.g. A2 north of Vilnius) and we had to resort to side roads or cycle lanes. Some of the side roads were just gravel and therefore we needed to put the bikes in the van) and some of the cycle tracks were little better than dirt tracks. :-)

 

4. Other road users: On the whole the majority of road users were very well behaved and courteous, certainly no worse (and at times better) than those in the UK. The only real exception to this was probably in Kaunas and Vilnius. This is probably just because they are big cities, but combined with the bad road conditions in these two areas, it made for interesting riding. :-)

 

Conclusion

 

1. Train Train Train – You’re in the saddle for 10 hours a day (minimum).

 

One thing I would like to say very clearly – The hospitality we received before, during and after our ride was amazing. We came over to raise some funds for a wonderful cause and support the children, I don’t think we ever really factored in the emotional impact of meeting the Captains, or the strength we would gain from receiving their gifts and their support. I also did not anticipate the strength of the ties that we would build or the continued desire to do more and go further to support your wonderful charity.