About us
The CROTOS Travelers’ Association is a non-profit organization. The main statutory task of the Association is the promotion of bicycle tourism. We want our expeditions to be attended by people with various experience in this type of traveling around the world, of different ages, from different countries, and with different financial status. We support family and youth tourism. We want to learn about different cultures and religions. We also promote bicycle tourism in the places we reach.
All our expeditions are organized according to principles that make their nature significantly different from trips organized by travel agencies, because they assume great independence of the expedition participants and openness to adventure. In line with the name of the Association, because “crotos” in Spanish means “wanderer” but also “vagrant”. This term stuck to the participants of a bicycle trip around the world – The Great Millennium Peace Ride 1998-2000 – in Argentina. Two Poles took part in the expedition, which took place under the patronage of UNESCO – Sławomir Płatek (he traveled the whole thing as one of four people) and Waldemar Grabka (participated for several months). After their return, they co-founded the CROTOS Travelers’ Association.
Our most important undertaking of the year is the organization of an expedition lasting several weeks or several months through several countries, the so-called BaltiCCycle. Since 2003, we have been preparing them together with the Lithuanian Great Millennium Peace Ride Foundation and the Lithuanian Cyclists Community LCC, as well as with the Latvian Velokurjers cyclists club.
Since 2006, we also invite the so-called short CROTO expeditions, weekend trips that give a foretaste of BaltiCCycle rallies.
This is how expeditions, which were initially a spontaneous “spurt”, gradually turned into an annual tradition of traveling and fulfilling dreams.