Photo credit: Dan Bistriteanu

by Tiberiu Grigore, Teambuilding Division Manager

These days I was looking through an older collection of pictures and I remembered last year’s trip by bike to the sea. So I invite you to join me on a journey of self-discovery, about fear, principles and ambition.

If it was hard or easy, if I had training or not, there are details that seem to greatly influence the trip, but, in reality, they are such a small component, as we will see in the following lines. It was rather a trip about time management, the team and overcoming the obstacles that most of the time we put ourselves in reaching our goals.

The year 2016 begins, the period of ‘setting the objectives’ at the beginning of the year and I learn from my friends about a challenge that instantly caught my eye – Bicycle Tour at the Sea, 300 km, organized by Lucian Mandruta.

Like any ambitious person who wants to surpass himself year after year, I felt that it was an opportunity for me and I quickly sought to register in this race. The idea was simple – we leave Bucharest on bicycles, stop halfway to spend the night, and the next day we continue our route to the sea, where a hot meal and the buses that will bring us back to Bucharest await us.

I start to get interested in the race, I buy a new bike with which I would have more chances to reach my destination, I also do some training until the big challenge – (funny) the longest training was 30 km.

We had found out in the meantime that we would be accompanied by the police, the ambulance, the team of bicycle mechanics, food all along the way, personal transport and for the bicycle in case we gave up – what’s more, we had all the prerequisites for a successful trip. Like the events we organize, everything was set up down to the smallest detail – we knew from the beginning what the objective was, we had all the resources at our disposal for the smooth development and there is also the backup option in case something goes wrong. turned out well

The big day arrives and surrounded by many cyclists, I could feel my heart beating with impatience and I couldn’t wait to hit the road.

The first KM were easy, I almost didn’t understand those who remained behind.

After 50 km, the first knee pains appear and the first ideas that maybe it would be better to end the day here and continue the journey tomorrow from the halfway point.

Almost 100 km followed in which the fight was no longer one with KM, but one with inner demons. Like a big goal, the fact that I set myself to eat the elephant piece by piece helped me to stop seeing the goal as so difficult and far away and to find the best solutions on every piece of road.

The first pitstop follows and the first promise that I will cover another 20 km until the next one and if I feel that I can no longer continue, I will do it then.

I carefully choose my energy sources here, I propose to pedal more easily with the leg with problems and try to stay somewhere in the middle of the column to have as little wind as possible to face.

The strategy is paying off, I reach the next pitstop a little better than the previous one and I propose to go further with more and more attention to the following signals.

Counterintuitively, the last 20 km of the first day were the easiest. Knowing how close the finish line is, how far we have come, suddenly all the ‘challenges’ disappeared and I pedaled at speed to the end.

One thing that I omitted in the lines above, but which was a real help, was to make friends with 2 road mates and to support ourselves morally along the way. The fact that an “acquaintance” was in front of me and had even reached a few meters further, gave me confidence that I could do it too.

Once you believe it is possible, it becomes possible.

After a well-deserved sleep, day 2 follows – the physical condition was nowhere near as good as at the beginning of the first day, the weather conditions would worsen – wind, rain, dark sky and I find out that we still have a few more kilometers to go covered only on the first day.

Because I knew the poem well from the first day, I didn’t think about the destination anymore, but every time about the first pitstop.

As we progressed, we arrived at the pitstop later and later and the recovery time was shorter and shorter.

When we had about 60 km left and more and more thoughts of giving up, a spokeswoman could be heard in the crowd – We have a little way to go, almost half have given up and the only chance to reach the end is to stay grouped . This journey is not about who gets there first, but about getting to the end and we want to get as many as possible. Come on, we can succeed together!

I felt reborn at that moment, and the joy I felt at the end was worth all the effort.

And because the professional defect says that at the end of any experience it is good to have a debrief, I summarize below 10 lessons I took from this trip:

1. It is always good to have big goals because they are the ones that grow you personally and professionally.
2. A good preparation at the beginning of the journey will always be your ally.
3. Big goals are achieved if they are divided into smaller, concrete and easily achievable actions.
4. Access the resources you need at the right time.
5. Follow your progress and adapt the trip according to the current situation.
6. It is good to pay attention to the inner signals – the better we know each other, the easier it is for us to achieve what we set out to do.
7. A travel partner will always help us.
8. Similarly, the vision of a leader in whom we trust, gives us at the right time the necessary impetus to move forward.
9. I certainly wouldn’t have managed to complete this journey alone.
10. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” (African proverb).

Today With a Bike to the Sea, tomorrow facilitating one of the teambuildings of here. What is your trip about?