Paris-Barcelona on a bike

Yavor Atanasov is raising money for GlobalGiving

Story

All funds collected here will automatically be added towards this ongoing fundraising project by Teach For Bulgaria trying to raise money for 6 new teachers: https://www.justgiving.com/project/3792470
So even if the target is reached, please keep donating! The money will go towards another one of their new teachers!

Hi there friends and good strangers of the internet!

Join me for the longest solo unsupported cycling journey I’ve ever done. I will cycle all the way from Paris to Barcelona covering 1300km in 10 days burning around 80 000 calories (that’s around 200 beautiful French baguettes). I dedicate this journey to a worthy group - "Teach For Bulgaria" - whose mission is to help motivated people become inspiring teachers and leaders, facilitating access to quality education for every child in Bulgaria. With your help I’d like to raise £3000 which will go towards the support of a new teacher for a year.

Here's the story of how a mindless joke became a thought that turned into a plan that grew into a cause.

Background: I live in London and my brother lives in Barcelona.

So here’s a joke:

my brother: When are you gonna visit me here in Barcelona?

me: I dunno...I’ll probably cycle there 😃

my brother: haha

The joke rolled off the ridges of my brain, fell through a crack somewhere and a few months later sprouted into a thought:

I’ll go visit my brother in Barcelona, but I will not be a mere passenger sitting on a chair being propelled through the air at hundreds of kilometres per hour. Instead, I will use the most energy efficient form of transportation man has ever created - a bicycle - and I will actually travel there. I don’t want to just be transported from point A to point B while dozing off, completely oblivious to the vast expanse of life that connects them. Instead, I will draw the longest path I’ve ever moved along on the surface of the Earth, wayfaring along at my own pace, propelled by my own aching body.

This path will connect Paris and Barcelona, it will be around 1300km long and I will live through every inch of it feeling every bump, pothole and hill.

So, here's the plan:

On June 3rd my journey will start from Gare Du Nord in Paris and over the following 7-8 days I will cycle south through the French regions of Ile-de-France, Centre, Bourgogne, Rhone-Alpes, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur and Languedoc-Roussillon then I will cross the east side of the Pyrenees mountain range before descending down into Barcelona. I will travel on my own, and unsupported, save for the kindness of strangers and the occasional local boulangerie...

What's the cause?

We can make this path I’ll draw on the map of Europe actually mean something to someone other than me (because, frankly, who cares what this means to me). Which is why I’d like to use this long and arduous ride to focus some of our energy to a group of motivated and bright young people that have dedicated their time and efforts to rejuvenate Bulgarian education. They are called "Teach For Bulgaria” (“Заедно в Час” - https://zaednovchas.bg/en/) and their mission is to encourage and prepare capable and ambitious people to become inspiring teachers and leaders in order to facilitate the access to quality education for every child in Bulgaria.

Unfortunately over the last 20 years a whirlpool of social, political and economic currents dragged the teaching profession in Bulgaria far away from the prestige and respect it deserves. As a result, fewer successful young people felt motivated to become teachers and the pillars of education have been steadily deteriorating. This hits society at its core and creates a self-perpetuating problem of a shrinking educational system that in turn yields fewer people that feed back into it. This comes with an increase in inequality and leaves behind a growing group of people deprived of opportunity and incapable of creating opportunity. We all know where that leads - we were lucky enough to study it and then travel the world to validate it with our eyes.

My simple point is - I had a teacher that changed my life. A lot of children don't. Now that’s a problem worth solving!

I strongly believe in what "Teach For Bulgaria” tries to do and I would like to use this journey as a channel to provide them with a little support.

With your help I’d like to raise £3000 which will go towards the support of one new teacher for a year.

As a testimony to my dedication to the cause, and to kick us off, I am donating the money I would’ve paid for a plane ticket from London to Barcelona - £150.

Your added support will definitely sooth my back pain on the road and will make me go faster. It is that support that will make my travel more than just a line on the map of Europe that I’ve drawn - it will make a difference to someone that tries to make a difference. If you think what you’ll do and what I’ll do is just a drop in the ocean - remember, an ocean is made up of drops.

Thank you and I’ll see you on the road

Yavor