SINCE 2013 Pedal4Progress (P4P) has been using the bicycle as a revolutionary tool for socialism.

Primarily set up as a fundraising platform for the Morning Star, P4P organises an annual multiday cycling challenge in support of progressive causes and organisations, using cycling as the means of highlighting its work and spreading its message.

In this short time we have welcomed over 50 progressive cyclists of all abilities, have travelled thousands of kilometres and raised thousands of pounds for the work of the Connolly Association, Working Class Movement Library, the last remaining Clarion House in Burnley, the campaign group A Statue for Sylvia and of course the Morning Star.

We have cycled to Paris, delivering a special bilingual edition of the Morning Star to participants during the Fete de L’Humanite, to the Durham Miners’ Gala to celebrate the tireless work of Merseyside Communist and Morning Star organiser Sam Watts and former Communist Party leader Harry Pollitt.

We have been the dispatch riders of solidarity messages from the Morning Star to the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and from the Communist Party to delegates attending the Baltic Sea: Sea of Peace Conference in the port city Kiel.

We managed to retrace the route of the famous Peace Race between Prague and Berlin in partnership with the Morning Star and the Czech and German sister papers Halo Noviny and Unsere-Zeit.

No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, it may soon become the step that will lead us
to better things

Last year we rode from the National Mining Museum in Wakefield, gifting an NUM miner’s lamp to the German Mining Museum in Bochum ahead of presenting our own vision for the creation of a Left Press Cycling Sportive to international delegates at the Dortmund Pressefest.

Once again we will take to the road this September. Our team of 14 riders and logistics core will be joined by progressive cyclists from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany to ride from Maastricht to Ostend to continue our protest against Nato aggression and the threat posed by EU security and foreign policy, culminating in a celebration of international solidarity at the Belgian Workers’ Party festival, Manifiesta.

During the two-day ride we will be holding discussions on how we can further build practical international solidarity, closer co-operation through sporting activities and our vision of building an international Left Press Cycling Sportive.

Next year our aim is to help celebrate the 90th anniversary of the people’s daily with a fundraiser that will see us revisit the original coast-to-coast route between Whitehaven and Tynemouth and undertake an epic journey from Friedrich Engels’s birthplace in Wuppertal to Manchester, where he witnessed the grim conditions of the working class as part of the Engels 200 anniversary celebrations.

As our Harry once said, “No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, it may soon become the step that will lead us to better things.”

For more information about contact us at [email protected] or on pedal4progress on Twitter.

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