Made in Lev | Frank fährt auswärts: 5.500 km auf dem Rad – ungeschlagen durch die Bundesliga!

Ein Fan, ein Fahrrad, eine Mission – und ein guter Zweck:
Frank Müller ist in der Saison 2024/25 mit seinem Fahrrad zu jedem Auswärtsspiel von Bayer 04 Leverkusen gefahren – über 5.500 Kilometer quer durch ganz Deutschland.
Seine Tour entstand aus einer Wette – zeigt aber nicht nur Ausdauer und schwarz-rote Leidenschaft, sondern unterstützt auch die Organisation „Die Gute Hand“, die sich für Menschen mit Behinderung starkmacht. Bei keinem Spiel, das Frank live erlebte, verlor die Werkself. Wir haben ihn auf seiner vorletzten Auswärtsetappe begleitet – nach Freiburg.

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Website ▶ https://www.bayer04.de/

My name is Frank Müller,
I’m 50 years old, and I’ve been a Bayer 04 fan for over 40 years
– I was born in Leverkusen. I’ve been really into cycling for over 20 years, and
I’ve combined my passions of cycling and football. When I’m riding my bike,
I’m completely relaxed. Shortly before the halfway stage of the 2023/24
season, when Leverkusen were top of the table, I got carried away and said “If we win
the league, I’ll cycle to every game.” I trained properly, with lots of
long-distance rides during the summer. To be honest, I couldn’t wait to
get started on 23 August. I hadn’t realised how many games we have in the
time of the year when the weather is horrible. There were all the international breaks
in the early part of the season, which I found annoying because it was still
summer and the weather was good. In 2024 I had seven games
in four months, and between January and March 2025 I had
another seven games in two months. 14 April last year gave us a lot, as did the season
as a whole – now I’m giving something back. Good morning! It’s almost the same game
as always, but it’s very different today: short sleeves, suncream on,
and two guys with me. You know Bernd from Munich.
-Hi! And you know Markus from the Dortmund
trip, when we were riding in the snow. We have 450km ahead of us – Markus is finishing
a bit earlier, and Bernd will be with me all the way. We had lots of rides in winter,
when it was very cold, and now it was almost too hot,
especially between 200 and 250km. At 200km we needed
more motivation, and we said we just have to do our normal home
route five more times – we’ve done four already. We did it in small
sections. The thermometer was showing about 30°C,
and it was quite a hilly route at that point. So we had to drink a lot. Freiburg was a great trip,
partly because of the weather. Every trip had its high point,
but they were all challenging too. It was clear right from the start that it was
generating a certain amount of attention, but what do you do
with attention? Just getting likes on social media
isn’t enough – I had to do more. So I decided to make it a charitable thing
and raise money for “Die Gute Hand”, which runs the Nazareth House
facility in Leverkusen. They want to build a roof
over their riding area, so that they can offer animal therapy for children
and young people even in bad weather. My son is about to turn 15, and
he’s on the autism spectrum. They help children with these “problems”,
and I wanted to do something locally. It’s in Schlebusch, the part of the city where I’m from,
so “Die Gute Hand” was the ideal candidate. We have a really good relationship,
and we’re always in touch. The Mainz game isn’t the
end of this project: I’d like to do a bit of a review and
then focus more on donations. We’ll see what the fixture list
for next season looks like, and if the weather’s good – now
I’m a fair weather cyclist! – I can imagine travelling to Stuttgart, Bremen
or Dortmund again, or something like that. There are two people who have
played a huge part in this. One of them is my girlfriend Viola, who ran the
social media account while I was riding my bike. She gave me moral support, and she
came with me on some of my trips. She organised everything to do
with arriving at these places, and she was fully on board
with this crazy idea. You can imagine that when I get up at 2.30
in the morning, she gets woken up too! So I have a lot to thank her for, and it
wouldn’t have been possible without her. And of course I want to thank
everyone who has supported me. It was very encouraging after my first few trips to hear
people saying “Amazing, keep going, good luck!” It gave me the motivation
to carry on. 5,563 kilometres in total 222.5 hours on his bike 35,564 metres climbed 125 districts and towns/cities