When the first cyclists started the "Tour of Hope" in 1989, children suffering from leukaemia already had a chance to be cured of about 60 per cent. Today, more than 30 years after, this chance has risen to 86 per cent. Progress has been reached, but still, one out of five children die on a malignant disease (for example lymph gland cancer, leukaemia, brain tumour). Those serious diseases will not lose their scariness until curing is the rule and death an absolute exception. Scientists and doctors work intensely in order to find the origins of those diseases, to understand their process and to adapt therapy methods in the best possible way to the sort of cancer. The aim has to be to open a normal way of life to every child. 

But still, doctors fight too often in vain for the lives of their small patients. And still, the mental strain is often as hard as the physical harm for children and their families. The public funding does not suffice, more funds are needed in order to support cancer research. to develop new therapy methods and to improve the care for children suffering from cancer. For those aims, the "Tour of Hope" cycles on a total route of 366 kilometres through Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.