Thijza, on the Yahoo Footbike Group, was thoughtful enough to post a message pointing to the September Swansea Eurocup Footbike event report. In reading through the report, and looking at the photos (of course!), there were several things that really caught my attention.
First and foremost, the way that everyone was smiling. These are obviously happy, active people having a lot of fun doing what they enjoy. Second was the sense of community. They all feel comfortable and at ease with each other, and share a common interest in footbikes, kickbikes, and HPV scooters. They probably come from all walks of life, and probably wouldn't have the opportunity to run into or befriend each other in their normal, every day lives.
And, the fact that there were a significant number of them, many that traveled quite a distance across Europe just to participate, was extremely impressive. Hopefully, one of these days in the not too distant future we'll see similar 'communities' forming in the US, Australia, Japan (of course!), and other locations around the globe.
Finally, the course was very interesting as well. For me, even after a year of kickbiking, a 20 km kick may be fun, but it's still a challenge. Yet here they were actually racing to cover the same distance, and doing it on a course that included 10 laps and two uphill legs. That implies, if I'm reading the report correctly, that they went uphill about 20 times! I consider myself lucky to manage an uphill climb once or twice during a 20 km kick.
The report (http://www.thyza.com/iksa/news/newspages-2005/7.html) is definitely worth checking out. It also includes links to other online footbiking resources.
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