Francesco Wessels (on the right), alias the "stoker". This is the official denomination of the man who sits at the back of the tandem.
I live in the village Zeddam in the hills of the Montferland. Sports are a very important part of my life. As an instructor at the air-mobile brigade of the Royal Dutch Army, I have fortunately a sport-loving job, which offers many challenges at work and in sports.
Once every time (...) I face a sport-loving and adventurous challenge. People have sometimes accused me that I might have some "contestants-pressure" . For them it seems that I register for each sport event, whereas I know that there is still much more nice to do. Former adventures produced splendid travel and expeditions around the world. During one of those travels, a climbing expedition in Africa, I met Fred. Already soon we knew that we had lots in common concerning sports and adventure. From that meanwhile fantastic adventures have come in our way. So we cycled in 2005, the Cape Epic, the African alternative of the Crocodile Trophy.
Fred Gras (on the left), alias the "captain" is the one who sits first. All 2 therefore operative as professional soldiers at the Royal Dutch Army. We did not know each other strangely enough from the army but we arrived accidentally (...) both in a Kilimanjaro expedition in 2003. This project was a good aim, namely Child Aid.
All participants had to collect a minimum amount, which was for the purpose of the children in the ghetto of Naïrobi. Also for me sports are an important part of my daily life. This has been frequently for a good aim, for example the relay run of Rotterdam to Paris (RoPa-run.)
Sometimes it motivates also to explore my own borders (in the marathons of Amsterdam and New York). The tandem project is so unique, because we are exploring our own borders and it is for a good aim, namely the "Stichting Tandem" (Tandem Foundation). And that explains our motto: Increase "by exploring our borders, the borders of visual disableds."