Fit For Fun
Sponsored Bike Ride and Fahrrad Festival

Lots of fun was had at the Sponsored Bike Ride and Fahrrad Festival on Saturday 13 May 2006. Starting at Karlsruhe train station, over 60 children and parents cycled 8kms across town, through the forest to the European School. Many other families cycled from home to the school directly. Belgium fries and special sauces were a delicious treat after a long ride.

Over 50 kids took part in the ADAC Bike Competition organised by Elio Sanzillo, with the winner receiving medals. This was followed by a display of biking tricks and a water balloon game.

Children who handed in their sponsorship forms, collected their certificates and for those who raised the most money there were bike prizes. For the second year in a row, over 2000 € was raised for the Bike & Bus Fund which will go towards the School’s very successful Bike Programme and buying a school bus. This year's winner was Shannon (3en) who raised 110€ including 50€ from Apple Computers. Well done!

The winning ticket for the Bike Raffle/Tombola was drawn out at the end of the afternoon by Maya (3fr) the daughter of Faiza Zaidi, an ESK parent, who again this year donated 500€ to the Bike & Bus Fund on behalf of INIT, a Karlsruhe-based company improving public and group travel with real-time information using innovative traffic systems. The winner Beatrice Barth works for the Council of Europe’s European Department for Quality Medicines.

Etoile Education would also like to thank Elio Sanzillo, the Karlsruhe Police who came and spent the afternoon registering bikes and giving anti-theft safety tips to kids, our cycle repairer who patiently checked and repaired non-stop, the school canteen and also the European Commission for their excellent publications including “Kids on the Move”, “Reclaiming city streets” and “Cycling: the way ahead for towns and cities”.

Together, we hope we managed to raise awareness about how kids go to school, encourage environmentally friendly, healthy and independent habits such as public and group transport and, of course, how much fun cycling actually is.

See you next year!