WHO ARE WE?
We are two cyclists.
Our education and work experience does not matter. Not here.
We are friends and lovers of the nature.
Our names are Gizem and Bryan.
One of us is Turkish, the other is American. We met when my volleyball serve ended on Bryan’s head instead of its intended place, over the net. The most important thing that I remember from that day at the Santa Monica beach is this conversation: “I want to travel around the world”. “No kidding, me too!”
It sounded like a great idea at first but then we realized that we needed a good amount of money. So we stopped buying needless things and stopped eating out. Period. İt was not not enough. We had to find another way. So we sold the cars. It did not take long for our mandatory relationship with the bicycles to become a love affair. When the bicycles became one of the best things that ever happened to us, we decided to make our world-tour wirh our bicycles.
We started our tour in Amsterdam and, and it was not a coincidence that it was the flattest city in the world. Although we had no touring experience whatsoever, we pedaled 3650 kilometers through 10 countries in Europe. After four months of getting from one place to another by the power of our breakfasts instead of fosil fuel, waving to the wild animals that would not run away from, us and meeting amazing people, we decided that we had to tell people: Bicycle = Freedom.
When TEMA, the largest environmental organization in Turkey believed in our cause, bisikleTEMA was born. By telling people what a wonderful feeling it is to ride a bicycle, we are hoping to promote bicycles as an alternative to motorized transportation and to give Mother Earth a chance to heal herself.
We are not very different than any one of you, we are not fearless and we do not have rich daddies. We just made our choice towards tent-road-bicycle, rather than home-work-car. Like many of you, it is love and being close to nature that makes us happy, not money and possessions. We just lent a hearing ear to our iner voice.
Our names are Gizem and Bryan. We are travelers who love our bikes.
