For the past several months I’ve been working to make today happen.

After teaming up with bicycle travelers Tom Kevill-Davies, Alastair Humphries and Kate Harris, the Bicycle Travel Network was born.

The Bicycle Travel Network (or BTN as we often times call it) is an organization we created to provide advice, backing and encouragement for a New Generation of Global Cycling Adventurers.

As part of our work at the BTN, we decided to create a scholarship fund that would help to actually pay for the travels of several young people. We created the Bicycle Travel Network scholarship because as four individuals who started traveling by bike at a very young age, we know how difficult it can be at times for young people to fund their travels and how rewarding it can be to individuals lucky enough to make it happen. We hope that by giving out these small micro-grants to the right people, we will be able to help these people make their dreams come true in some small way. And as someone who has conducted several long-distance bike tours on just a few hundred dollars, I know what a big difference a small amount of money can make.

Today we announced the BTN’s first round of scholarship recipients! You can check out the list of individuals selected for the micro-grants by clicking this link.

We launched the Bicycle Travel Network on March 22, 2010 and in just one month’s time we were able to raise approximately $800 USD to give away during this first round of micro-scholarships.

In total, 47 people applied for this first round of BTN scholarships and it was a difficult process to narrow down that list to just a few individuals. Every person that applied had a great story to tell and it was really hard to narrow our selection. We wish we had more money to give away, but we are extremely grateful for the results we were able to achieve in such a short amount of time.

Over the next several months we plan to follow up with today’s BTN scholarship recipients and feature them on the website at www.bicycletravelnetwork.com. We will be learning more about each of their trips, interviewing them about the lessons they’ve learned from life on the road, and sharing some of their stories from their travels.

Click here to see who was selected as the first seventeen BTN scholarship recipients.