“Tour de Timor” Sister-City Bike Ride

Set for Sunday May 17

Tenth Annual Bike Ride Come Ten Years After East Timor Independence Vote

    What:  Tenth annual “Tour de Timor” bike ride fundraiser
for Madison’s sister-city of Ainaro, East Timor, with special guests
State Representative Spencer Black and radio personality Mel, from
WORT’s popular Friday afternoon show “Mel & Floyd”

    When:  Sunday, May 17, starting at 1:00 pm (rain date May 24)

   
Where:  Start at the WORT Block Party (at the corner of Bedford and
Doty Streets), and ride around Lake Monona (approx. 13 miles)

   
Cost:  $25 registration fee (includes special tenth anniversary
T-shirt); riders are encouraged to collect pledges, with the highest
pledge-raisers winning prizes

    For more information:  See www.aideasttimor.org, call 608-241-2473 or email madison@etan.org

The
tenth annual “Tour de Timor” bike ride will be on Sunday, May 17,
starting at 1:00 pm at the WORT Block Party, near the corner of Bedford
and Doty Streets in Madison.  Participants will ride around Lake Monona
to raise funds for community projects in Ainaro, Madison’s official
sister-city in the Southeast Asian island nation of East Timor.  The
tenth anniversary ride will feature two special guests, State
Representative Spencer Black and Mel from WORT’s popular Friday
afternoon show “Mel & Floyd.”

For a $25 registration fee, participants will receive a special
anniversary “TdT-X” organic, union-made T-shirt.  Participants are also
encouraged to collect pledges.  The highest pledge-raisers will receive
prizes from Tour de Timor co-sponsors, including Yellow Jersey,
Revolution Cycles, Machinery Row Bicycles, Just Coffee, Family Farm Defenders, Rainbow
Bookstore, B-Side Records, People’s Bakery, Planet Zebulon and the
Progressive magazine.  Madison’s community radio station, WORT 89.9 fm,
is also supporting the event, which will start and end at the station’s
annual Block Party.  More information and pledge sheets can be found at
www.aideasttimor.org.

The Tour de Timor has become a tradition within Madison’s
international solidarity community.  The first ride was held in August
1999, as the people of East Timor prepared to vote in a United
Nations-organized referendum on their future.  They overwhelmingly
voted for independence, bringing an end to the brutal,
quarter-century-long Indonesian military occupation of their country. 
Unfortunately, as the Indonesian military left East Timor, they
destroyed an estimated 70 percent of its infrastructure.  In 2000, the
Madison chapter of the East Timor Action Network (ETAN-Madison)
established a sister-city relationship with Ainaro, to help the rural
community rebuild.  That work continues today.

Madison has a long history of solidarity with East Timor.  In 1992,
during the U.S.-supported Indonesian military occupation of East Timor,
local residents (including Indonesian students) formed ETAN-Madison. 
In 2001, Madison and Ainaro formed the first official sister-city
relationship between U.S. and East Timorese communities.  The
Madison-Ainaro Sister-City Alliance, a project of ETAN-Madison, has
organized several delegations to Ainaro.  Previous Tour de Timor bike
rides have raised thousands of dollars for the Madison visit last
summer of two Ainaro community leaders; helped fund a joint
international / Timorese election observer project in 2007; and
provided grants to women’s income-generation projects, sustainable
agriculture groups, a local radio station, and other vital
community-led projects in Ainaro, East Timor.