meet the family

Meet Gaëlle

The adventuring academic. From one city to the next, trainee architect Gaëlle Bojko and her Bombtrack Arise spent last year soaking up cycling culture across Europe.

Venturing alone from her home in north-western France on a grand lap around the outskirts of Europe, 22-year-old Gaëlle Bojko combined adventure with academia. Setting off with the intention of linking around twenty different towns, this solo ride will also forme some of the research for Gaëlle’s upcoming Masters degree project.

“I wanted to spend a few days in each to discover its evolution, history and everyday life. I wasn’t aiming to learn everything about every town. That would require spending months, if not years, in each. Instead, I wanted a glimpse of their uniqueness.”

The plan was to gain insight into how each city has developed its own individual cycling culture. But the trip isn’t all work. Between these busy metropolises lies further adventure. With only a rough plan of her route, Gaëlle tends to set a direction, ride a hundred miles, and see where she ends up. From braving fierce snowstorms in Albania and Greece, to enjoying unexpected lunch invitations in rural Turkey, Gaëlle endures the landscape and climate, while throwing herself into the local culture.

How are you financing your rider's activity: All kind of student jobs, during holidays and on weekends. Some are interesting, and some are really boring. But knowing that I'll have money to go and cycle during the holidays is a good motivation. Hopefully, I'll find a summer job that’s related to bicycles someday!

There will be situations where it’ll be hard squaring up to everything. In those moments, I’ll just push harder on the pedals because there’s nothing like the feeling you get when you’ve made it."

What has been your favourite event / race and why: It’s hard to tell. I enjoyed most of the countries I cycled in. There were some good points and some downsides about all of them. However, I would say I enjoyed cycling in Turkey, even if I had a lot of trouble there as a solo woman. Lots of steep mountains to climb, lots of tea to keep me warm and hydrated, lots of kind people to chat with, and wide hard shoulders on which I felt very safe. I spent one and a half months there. It was great to get to understand the culture and therefore know how to interact with people. That makes any stay much more enjoyable than only spending a couple of days in a country, as I did in the Balkans, where I got frustrated with not understanding how things work.