How everything started

Great things typically start with a simple idea! The Global Biking Initiative was born on January 2nd 2008 in the Vodafone canteen in Düsseldorf, Germany. A small IT project team enjoying lunch together, complained about their weight gain over Christmas and the New Year. Activating their professional problem solving skills, a solution was quickly found within ten minutes: Cycling! Not too exhausting, lots of fun, with the aim of sharing a lot of unforgettable experiences and combined with the objective of raising funds for a good cause.

The first GBI set off from Düsseldorf on May 28th, 2008 and over six days the 63 riders cycled to the Vodafone Global Headquarter in Newbury (UK). More than twenty business sponsors supported the initiative and over 23,000 Euros was raised. After a great welcome in Newbury and a lot of memorable experiences during the week's cycling, we decided on the spot to repeat the experience and organize a similar tour every year!

The basic principles and philosophy have not changed since the first ride, except for one original objective which we have  consistently missing: for whatever reason, nobody has ever lost weight during a ride!

Cycling Events

Every year we organize several charity events which focus on cycling.

The annual GBI Europe tour is our most important week-long event, during which we cover several hundred kilometers by two different routes of varying distance. We ride in teams of ten, and both routes meet at the GBI Village at the end of the day so that we can exchange impressions over one or two drinks and dinner. In the past, up to four hundred participants have followed routes such as Oslo-Düsseldorf, Prague-Düsseldorf, Budapest-Munich and Milan-Düsseldorf.

Our vision is ultimately that there will be somebody cycling for charity every single day of the year somewhere in the world, so we are expanding to offer smaller local GBI tours like GBI Jordan-Egypt, GBI Egypt, GBI Suisse or the 24-hour cycling race at the Formula One circuit Nurburgring. We try to launch one additional event every year to attract more and more people and offer more opportunities to cycle for charity.

 

Raising funds

Since 2008, more than 4,000 cyclists have taken part in the various GBI events. So far, twenty countries in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East have been visited. This enabled charity organizations in 39 countries to be supported with more than 3.5 million euros in donations. The donations generated through the various events go directly to those charity projects in the home countries of the participants. Every participant of our events commits to make a minimum donation that supports the chosen charity in his or her home country.