RIDER RESILIENCE
We are a not-for-profit community movement designed to support riders facing hardship through inspirational storytelling and funding of resilience promoting projects.
Why Rider Resilience?
In 2017, Nils Amelinckx - a bicycle industry professional - was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer despite otherwise being a fit and healthy thirty year old.
Being given no more than five years left to live, he found that riding bikes combined with photography and writing gave him the mental clarity and physical resilience to help navigate these stormy waters.
As some of his work started getting picked up by the media it became apparent it had the potential to generate an inspirational wake, benefiting people from all walks of life in the face of adversity.
As time became increasingly precious, Nils decided to draw on his personal and professional connections within the bicycle industry to help kick start RIDER RESILIENCE into a movement, turning the incredible community of cyclists into a force for the greater good.
Our Mission Is Simple
The movement will draw on stories of bike derived resilience and the strength of the bicycle community to encourage anyone in the face of adversity to get out and ride a bike as much as possible throughout times of hardship.
We believe riding bikes has healing powers, allowing you to bounce back quicker.
RIDER RESILIENCE revolves around two main axles:
NURTURING RESILIENCE through inspirational posts, storytelling and the curation of a library of inspiration
Generating FUNDING to in turn support causes that share our ethos
Our long term aim is to become a global collective, focused on strong rider affiliation and a powerful sense of community belonging.
Rider Resilience will be a resource from which strength, inspiration and funding can be drawn, allowing anyone to #RideItOut, whatever life may throw in their way.
We Foster Resilience
RIDER RESILIENCE will thrive on community stories from people who have found a degree of solace during times of adversity by turning to, and riding bikes.
This covers stories of disability, mental health, racism, or even human displacement but to name a few.
Our aim is to be proactive storytellers through interviews, imagery, video and to build these stories into a large library of inspirational legacy.
We hope that having a vast pool of inspirational content can help to foster or regain resilience and positivity in people, that it will serve to appreciate the good things in life and become an ever growing impetus to once again get out and ride.
To enhance our visibility we will seek to work with Rider Resilience ambassadors; influential individuals with a strong affiliation to our cause who can help us to spread our message. If that sounds like you, we would love to hear from you.
We Fund Resilience
Our aim is to raise funds to allow us to support other projects and incentives that are closely aligned to our ethos. Whether that be the provision of bikes to refugees, introductory bikepacking events for minority groups, enabling more diversity and inclusivity in the world of bikes or helping cancer patients gain access to two wheeled respite. The list is endless.
Funding will be raised primarily through the sale of merchandise, donations and positively encouraging riders to find the limit of their own resilience by undertaking community fundraising challenges. Think long distance bikepacking rides, Everesting, or even subjecting yourself to a 24 hour turbo session.
Longer term our aim is to explore corporate affiliation by working with businesses who want to be a force for good and have a strong sense of advocacy.
Profits will either be reinvested into our storytelling work or donated to projects that support our core ethos.
For more information on how you can help us raise funds, visit the fundraising page