News and announcements by the Tramprennen-crew

Is that Jim Carrey hitchhiking? :)

The number of teams and participants is rapidly growing: 34 teams registered, 15 teams are already confirmed and so far we’re going to hitch down to Romania with 69 hitchhikers! In practice: more than 3 of the existing 6 routes are full! And one important question: Is that Jim Carrey hitchhiking? ;)

[youtube id=v5V4lc3jaZE]

Just to remember – a quick guide through the registration process:
1. Every Hitchhiker has to create his own account on tramprennen.org
2. Register a team
3. Log in and go to your Team Dashboard and invite your Hitchmate(s)
4. Wait until your Hitchmate(s) confirmed your invitation
5. Every participant has to do some homework: Send the Liability Waiver form and transfer 25 Euro for the Hitchpackage
6. Choose your route!
7. Go nuts! :)
8. Raise funds for Viva con Agua and the WASH-Project in India! :)

If you haven’t found a Hitchmate to hitch with yet, have a look at our Hitchmate X-Change Pinboard

That’s it for the moment. Within the next weeks we’re going to publish our plans for a magazine, spread a fundraising guide and keep on working behind the scenes: finetuning of the website, finding meeting points in the checkpoint cities (usually a fountain, church or well-known public place), contact newspapers and radio statios and some more stuff :)

If you have any question, get in touch with us: gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni . We’re happy to answer every question! :)
Cheeeers, Tramprennnen 2012-Crew

Registration bug is fixed

Whoop!

The registration bug from the past days should be fixed now and you can register without any problems again. Make sure to invite your hitchmates via mail and follow the instructions in our mail, how to do your homework etc. You might need to re-invite your hitchmates if you’ve invited them before the bug occured. Sorry for the circumstances, we’re trying our best to make it as smooth as possible for everyone :)

We keep on working on other features like the platform to find a hitchmate and some more stuff that makes a hitchhiker smile :)

That’s it for the moment!Cheeeers
Tramprennen 2012 Crew

First teams online; finding a Hitchmate; Choosing a route

Heya Hitchhikers!

It’s not even 2 weeks and already 15 teams registered for the race! Awesome! Maybe you’ve wondered why you can’t see most of the team profiles online on the website yet: Every team has to do some homework, before their profile will be published. Three hard workers made it in the meantime and sent their liability waivers and transferred the money for the Hitchpackage and their teams appeared online today! They are onlince since today! Welcome! Yeeahaw!

Finding a Hitchmate

We received several mails of people asking for Hitchmates in the last days. We will provide a small platform for Hitchmate requests soon on tramprennen.org and hope all the people looking for someone to hitch with will find someone soon! Just give us a couple of days since we also need to do some homework which is on our priority list :).
Please remember: Every participant needs his own account to join a team. Login and click the invitation Link you received from your Hitchmate via Mail. Otherwise you’ll never complete the team registration and can’t take part in Tramprennen 2012 ;)

Choosing a route

Some people were confused about choosing their routes. You can register a team and choose and switch your route as many times as you wish until August 4th. So don’t hesitate do register your team if you’re not sure yet which route you wanna hitch! There is still time to decide… :)

That’s it for the moment!
Cheeeers, Tramprennen 2012 Crew

Let the good times roll! Tramprennen 2012 can begin! Registrations start now! :)

It’s been a while and we know we’re a bit late since we announced the relaunch and starting the booster phase for team registrations for early June. Sorry for the circumstances, sometimes things take a little longer as expected…anyways, after months of preparations and all kind of thoughts we’re more than happy today to be back on the road and officially start the Project Tramprennen 2012 – with you! For us it’s always a special moment – and believe us, every single team registration that reaches our mailbox will put the biggest smile you can imagine on our faces! :)

It’s the 5th Tramprennen this year for Viva con Agua and back in 2008 when we started the first race with 11 people to Spain, we never thought about such things like team registration and donate systems, we did not even think about a website to be honest. This year we prepared a race that suits for 150 potential participants! Isn’t that crazy shit?!??! =) We have 6 routes, starting in Germany, Danmark and Belgium. It’s the first time that Tramprennen really becomes an European hichhike race with hitchhikers from all over the continent!

And now: fire from all holes!!!

We want you to be part of Tramprennen 2012 and share two great weeks on the road with you! Register a team and race with many many other hitchhikers to Romania for Viva con Agua and a water project in India! It doesn’t matter whether you’ve hitchhiked 100000km or never before, doesn’t matter where you come from and how old you are (well, you should be older than 18 or hitch with your parents! ;)…)! Find a hitchmate and join us! We’re looking for you, looking forward for dumb-ass teamnames and profile pictures, looking forward for every single cent that goes into the water projects of Viva con Agua and last but not least to kick your ass on the roads to Romania! :)

What you need to know now

Check out the FAQ for further information and skim through the beautiful new redesign! You can register a team from now on! We’ll then provide you with everything necessary via mail.

These are the basic steps:
1. Find a hitchmate and register a team (one person needs to be male at least)
2. Do your homework: fill your team profile, send the liability waiver form, transfer the money for the hitchpackage
3. Choose your route
4. Find TeamSponsors and Owners for the WASH-Project of Viva con Agua in India :)

Behind the Website, into the Code and the future of this project

You probably wonder why it has taken so long for us to relaunch the website and everything you see is another design. The majority of the new stuff are backend functions that help us to organize the race sustainable and beyond Tramprennen 2012. Still, the website is now smartphone compatible and staffed with many more cool and helpful features.

Two years ago we implemented every team profile and sponsor manually, in 2011 they were already automatically. Same with mails. This year we can easily set up a new route with as many stages and possible teams as we want to. That means further, that anyone with a good reason can organize or request a hitchhiking race via our platform – the Hitchhiking Hub. Wouldn’t that be amazing, a hitchhike race in Canada or in Australia? The new plugin is able to realize this idea and can provide the technical background. A milestone in the evolution of the whole project for us. For the first reason, because we want to spread the word about hitchhiking – and there is no better way to do so with a hitchhiking race. Secondly, because we always wanna integrate new and interested people into the project Tramprennen and make it independet from a certain group of people (well,us :P).

In the future we’ll add more features on the hitchhikinghub.org. New ways of demonstrating the art of hitchhiking, blog systems for hitchhikers and probably even an app for smartphones where you’ll be able to track your hitchhiking trips without big effort.

It’s a big dream and we strongly believe in it: hitchhiking makes the world a better place. It builts friendship and trust among people all over the world. We think this is a good reason to keep working on such a project. And we’re happy to have you on board on this wonderful journey! :)

That’s it for the moment! Are you ready?!

Cheeeers, Tramprennen 2012 Crew!

Routes No.V. & VI: Grover and Oscar The Grouch on the road to Romania

There we go, the last two routes of Tramprennen 2012: Grover and Oscar the Grouch!
Starting in Berchtesgaden and Bayreuth, going through Austria, Czech Repuclic, Slovakia and the Ucraine till Romania!
Just a few steps are missing and we’re ready to relaunch our website and start registrations for Tramprennen 2012! So be ready, find your hitchmate and wait for news in the near future! We’re close! Rock’n’Roll :)!

Route No.V: Grover

Berchtesgaden (D) – Neusiedler See (AT) – Banská Štiavnica (SK) – Kosice (SK) – Mukacheve (UA) – Cluj-Napoca (RO) – Lacal Surduc (RO)

Route on Google Maps

Start: Berchtesgarden (Germany)
Size: cosy
Water: easy to hitchhike to the Königsee
Important: hometown of a famous woodworking school

1st stage: Neusiedler See (Austria)
Size: close to a village
Water: directly on the lake
Important: on hot days the water temperature can raise up to 30 degree

2nd stage: Schemnitz (Slovakia)
Size: very small
Water: mountains!
Important: town wall from the 13th century

3rd stage: Kosice (Slovakia)
Size: bigger
Water: on the river Hornad
Important: Kosice has more monuments than every other city in Slovakia, meeting point the other route

4th stage: Mukachevo/Мукачеве (Ucraine)
Size: 91.000
Water: for sure a bit
Important: The city is now a rail terminus and highway junction, and has beer, wine, tobacco, food, textile, timber and furniture industries

5th stage: Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Size: fourth biggest city of Romania
Water: some streams and a river, more important are the mountains and the forrest surrounding the city
Important: 45 000 students are living in the culture-city

6th stage: Lacul Surduc
Size: Lake!
Water: Lake!
Important: Lake!

Route No VI.: Oscar the Grouch

Bayreuth (D) – České Budějovice (CZ) – Stare Hamry (CZ) – Kosice (SK) – Ghilvaci (RO) – Targu Mures (RO) – Lacal Surduc (RO)

Route on Google Maps

Start: Bayreuth (Germany)
Size: not to big
Water: River, small rivers and a lake in the park
Important: the Richard-Wagner-Festival takes place until the 28th of august

1st stage: České Budějovice (Czech Republic)
Size: medium
Water: Beer!
Important: more famous is the german name Budweis

2nd stage: Stare Hamry (Slovakia)
Size: tiny
Water: Ostravice River
Important: forest covers 86% of village’s area

3rd stage: Kosice (Slovakia)
Size: bigger
Water: on the river Hornad
Important: Kosice has more monuments than every other city in Slovakia; is meeting point with Grover

4th stage: Gilvachi (Romania)
Size: very small
Water: one stream, some fields
Important: home village of Walter Mutter

5th stage: Targu Mures (Romania)
Size: medium / big
Water: River Mieresch, Lake and a subterranean water
Important: there you find the biggest Hungarian minority and the city was in the history a party of Hungary in places.

6th stage: Lacul Surduc
Size: Lake!
Water: Lake!
Important: Lake!