Biking for Babies: Building a culture of life one mile, one missionary at a time

A jubilant Instagram post from Biking for Babies celebrated its weeklong 2023 national ride, which culminated July 15.

“We did it! God delivered us safely to both our finish lines: Arlington, Va., and St Louis, Mo. … Praise him for a beautiful challenge and incredible week of lifting up women in unplanned, difficult and risky pregnancies and their children.”

The July 10-15 ride included stops in Maryland and featured 79 young adult missionaries (18-39 years old) cycling some 100 miles per day to raise awareness and financial support for women and families served by pregnancy resource centers across the county. Its aim was to renew a culture that promotes life.

After stopping at St. Patrick’s Church in Havre de Grace earlier in the day, the Biking for Babies missionary team celebrate arriving for an overnight stay at Holy Cross Retreat House in South Baltimore July 14, 2023. The group is traversing some 600 miles from New York to Washington, D.C., where they will meet up with the fellow cyclists traveling from St. Louis bringing hope and awareness for expecting mothers and the unborn. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

Its mission statement explains, “Biking for Babies proclaims the dignity of human life by uniting cycling with the formation of young adults into missionary disciples of Jesus Christ.”

The missionaries, who rode in eight teams leaving from destinations in seven states, included a team of nine cyclists who started their ride in Amsterdam, N.Y., and ended in Arlington, Va., traveling through and resting in Baltimore. For team members from Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Kansas and Ontario, gathering in Amsterdam was the first challenge, some traveling with their bikes by van, bus or plane, and one couple biking from Montreal to Albany, N.Y.

Another group biking from Columbus, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., made a stop at the Shrine of Ss. Peter and Paul in Cumberland.

Hitting the road by 5 a.m. to avoid the heat, the team that made its way through Baltimore was accompanied by two support vehicles and three support crew members who handled all the expected and unexpected challenges, including five flat tires on the first day. They traveled on dirt roads and two-lanes highways, encountering everything from construction vehicles to tractor trailers.

Cyclists clad in bright yellow t-shirts with the B4B logo pushed themselves toward their 600-mile goal, eliciting waves and whistles with their inspired efforts, even receiving unplanned support from a tractor-trailer driver who slowed down traffic for a stretch of road on a two-lane highway until bikers could ride through safely.

Chris Massaro, director of mission and advancement for Biking for Babies, explained he created the New York route, which also went through Philadelphia, so the many supporters in the north “could see the fruits of their giving.”

Biking for Babies partners with and provides financial support to pregnancy resource centers that offer direct care for women and families in need, including the Center for Pregnancy Concerns, Baltimore. Each rider or support crew missionary is paired with a specific center to learn about their services, pray for them during training and the ride, and share their stories locally, as well as nationally.

As one of the cyclists, Massaro also acknowledged that, while on the ride, his aching body sometimes becomes a challenge.

Biking for Babies traversed some 600 miles starting in New York with Maryland stops including St. Patrick’s Church in Havre de Grace and an overnight stay at the Catholic Community of South Baltimore July 14, 2023. Their trip concluded in Washington, D.C., where they will meet up with the fellow cyclists traveling from St. Louis. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

“I pray the rosary as I go,” he said, “the Sorrowful Mysteries … it is part of the mental aspect, re-convincing myself to keep pedaling.”

Essential to their success were the varied hosts who provided a break in the heat of the day or sheltered them at the end of each grueling ride, including parish halls, retreat centers, family homes, and once, recounts Massaro, a bike shop.

While traveling through Havre de Grace, the team stopped for a break at St. Patrick Church where Father Francis Ouma, pastor, and the parish hospitality team welcomed them with water and hydration drinks and made space for their bikes in the parish garage. Father Ouma also made a special trip to the store for ice cream.

When they arrived in Baltimore, they spent the night at the South Baltimore Retreat House on the campus of Holy Cross Church, part of the pastorate of the Catholic Community of South Baltimore.

Amy Erardi, archdiocesan coordinator of pastoral care in the archdiocesan Office of Life, Justice and Peace, explained that as volunteer hosts, she and her husband, Frank, had been asked to provide “sustenance and respite to the team while they were here.”

When support crew route leader Maddie Ferrero arranged hosting in the retreat house, the couple brought all the planned food and drink there, including a modest celebration for newly engaged couple Massaro and Kasey Brown, a member of the support crew.

Erardi, a volunteer diagnostic medical sonographer and volunteer board member for Options@328, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in downtown Baltimore, said she loved the sacrifice the bikers put in physically “while the front lines at the pregnancy center do the emotional and spiritual hard part.”

She noted that a special part of the evening was when Father Brendan Fitzgerald, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore, offered eucharistic adoration.

At the end of their journey, the team visited the St. John Paul II National Shrine, near The Catholic University in Washington, before joining the 2023 Celebration of Life honoring their sacrifice and commitment to life, and held at St. Charles Catholic Church, Arlington, Va. As bikers rode in at the end of the final leg of their journey, family, friends and people from the surrounding area cheered on the side of the road.

In a brief testimony, Ferrero, also a parishioner of the Catholic Community of South Baltimore, and now in her second year with the team, recalled her first national ride “brought many challenges both spiritually, mentally and physically. I looked around at my team members and saw that during these difficult moments they called upon Jesus to be their strength. They approached each battle as a joy-filled opportunity to go deeper and to suffer with Christ. This inspired me to encounter Jesus in a whole new way.”

Since its founding in 2009, B4B has donated $1.26 million to life-affirming work, supported 102 pregnancy resource centers and pedaled 31,000 miles – for life.

For more information visit bikingforbabies.com.

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