Tackling the scourge of modern slavery, UK based Ride For Freedom harnesses the universal appeal of cycling to end modern slavery and provide remedy to survivors.
Founded by the unstoppable Gordon Miller, a 2x Cycling Guinness World Record title holder, Ride for Freedom creates and leading unique cycling challenges and events that fundraise and educate.
Last year Miller led a 2,250km tour between the 18 German Bundesliga clubs having previous completed a successful and acclaimed bike ride between all 20 English Premier League Football clubs, during the Euro 2020 tournament.
Miller set a new Guinness World Record “Greatest distance covered by an electric bicycle in one week” in 2022, cycling 1,706.85km (1,060 miles) the length of Spain in one week. He had previously set a Guinness World Record in England when he cycled 620.5 miles, in October 2020, to spell the words ‘end modern slavery’. The verified challenge saw him become the title holder for “the largest GPS drawing by bicycle (individual)”.
This year Miller and the team took on Spain’s picturesque Basque Country, cycling the first 3 stages of the Tour de France in the week before the professionals, and visiting football clubs including Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad.
The Ride For Freedom Tour reinforces the not-for-profit’s #ShowARedCard campaign that raises awareness of human/child trafficking in sport. The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) 2020 Report notes that “within Europe’s soccer industry alone, it is estimated there are 15,000 human trafficking victims each year”.
Miller, the Ride For Freedom founder & team leader, said:
“Many of those trafficked in sport are youths. They are falsely lured to Europe by promises of the opportunity of trials with professional football clubs that will lead to untold riches. The Ride For Freedom Basque Country Cycling Tour 2023 ‘shows a red card’ to this crime.”
As well as shining a light on human trafficking in football, the social enterprise’s Cycling Tour fundraises to support the development of the Freewheel by Ride For Freedom programme, and seeds one of the not-for-profit’s Freewheel Hubs in the Basque Country as a legacy of the Tour.
To support Gordon and the team head to: