MINNEAPOLIS— Two days after Britta Swanson graduated from the University of Minnesota in Duluth, she hit the road a three-week cycling adventure with her cousin, Karina Schindler.
“I said I would do this, so I’m just going to keep going,” Swanson said.
That was her mentality as she cycled across the country.
“It was everything we expected and nothing we expected,” Schindler said.
Britta Swanson
The pair cycled from Minnesota to Maine for 17 days, traveling through seven states and one Canadian province, traveling an average of 80 miles per day.
“Erin, my aunt, rode with us pretty much every mile and then biked so much,” Schindler said. “She’s an absolute beast, on the bike, off the bike. She made sure we were taken care of.”
It wasn’t easy. The nearly 1,500 miles took courage to complete. But their reason for the ride kept them going. Together, the girls raised nearly $14,000 for World Bicycle Relief, a nonprofit organization that empowers and mobilizes low-income regions through cycling.
“Just having that reassurance that we’re doing this for something bigger than ourselves really made it easier to keep going,” Swanson said. “What WBR is doing is really great.”
Their contribution funded 80 life-changing bicycles.
“Every now and then Erin would get an email like, ‘Oh, your bike is going to Malawi’ or ‘Your bike is going to Colombia,'” Schindler said. “Oh, this is really something we do. These are real people we’re helping. Just knowing that is a great, great feeling.”
Another great feeling was the finish in Maine.
“We took out our bikes, dropped them on the beach with full gear and everything ran into the ocean together,” Schindler said. “It was amazing.”
It seems like the cousins always have a new adventure in the works, but right now the next adventure is living together. They hope to find a place this fall.
“I mean, there’s the whole other half of the country, you know? We haven’t been through the Rockies yet,” Swanson said. “So maybe we’ll come back in a few years to raise money for something else. But we’ll see.’
Click here to donate to the cause.
Beret Leone
