Wisconsin bike rides support Gaza Sunbirds

Photos courtesy of The Great Ride of Return MKE

The Great Ride of Return – Milwaukee’s inaugural ride in April 2024 included a stop at the Sunburst statue on Wisconsin Ave.

In early 2024, something popped up in southside Milwaukee resident Eric Kleppe-Montenegro’s social media about the Gaza Sunbirds, a para-cycling team from Gaza, and the global solidarity movement supporting them.

The Gaza Sunbirds, a team of amputee athletes in the Gaza Strip, formed in 2020 to create a pathway for Palestinian athletes with disabilities to participate in sports. Some Sunbirds were able to leave Gaza and represent Palestine on the world stage; others continue to live through Israel’s war on Gaza.

“People in the UK, Ireland and other places organize mass bike rides to show their support, raise the Palestinian flag in the streets, and take it in front of the cycling and sports communities,” Kleppe-Montenegro told the Wisconsin Muslim Journal Wednesday. “I saw the strength and perseverance and spirit of these cyclists. They are cyclists like me but had a leg blown off and continued cycling. I was really moved.”

He reached out to the team and spoke with team manager Karim Ali. “I got the go-ahead to start organizing in Milwaukee. With their permission and recognition, I organized our first ride in April 2024. 

“Over time, we developed a strong coalition of organizations here, including Milwaukee for Palestine, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and others. The community around the bike rides keeps getting bigger, stronger and more organized.” 

In 2025, Great Ride of Return – Milwaukee initiated its Milwaukee-to-Madison long-distance ride. Its second Milwaukee-to-Madison takes place Saturday, Oct. 17.

They have organized a dozen rides so far, with 25 to 60 people participating, Kleppe-Montenegro said. On its first Milwaukee-to-Madison ride in 2025, many people participated in sections of the ride; six cyclists completed the full 80 miles.

The Milwaukee chapter of Great Ride of Return hosts two rides in October.

• Big Ride for Palestine, Sunday, Oct. 11

The “slow-roll” solidarity ride, an about 8-kilometer ride designed to include riders of all levels, begins at Urban Park Green Space (near Discovery World) in Milwaukee at 1 p.m. No fee or registration is required. 

• Great Ride of Return, Vol. 2, Saturday, Oct. 17

A long-distance, advanced ride from Milwaukee to Madison for the Gaza Sunbirds, meeting at the Mitchell Park Domes at 10 a.m. No fee. Registration is required. 

Cyclists in both rides and their supporters are asked to contribute to the Gaza Sunbirds. Links for donations and registration for Oct. 17 are available on the Great Ride of Return-MKE Instagram page.

An interview with founder of Great Ride of Return-Milwaukee 

WMJ interviewed Eric Kleppe-Montenegro, 35, of Milwaukee, founder of the Milwaukee Chapter of the Great Ride of Return, an international solidarity movement to support the Gaza Sunbirds. Kleppe-Montenegro spoke with us while pushing his son in a stroller for an evening walk. Here are the highlights.

Tell us about yourself.

I’ve been an organizer around issues like immigrant rights and state violence since 2008, when I was in college. I was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Louisville. Palestine was the issue where I got my first experiences in community organizing. I moved to Milwaukee in 2014.

You are not Palestinian. What drew you to the Palestinian cause?

Palestine is the cause of humanity in our lifetime, and even in the generations before us. Now more than ever, to fight for Palestine is to fight for all of humanity. A genocide is a crime against all humanity.

Those responsible for this violence are doing it with our tax dollars and with our political institutions. They make us complicit in this violence. Unless we take a bold stance and put our body on the gear, so to speak, we’re responsible for the machine turning and have the blood on our hands as well.

There is also the fact that we’re not in their shoes only by matters of circumstance and geography. When it comes to the military industrial complex and technological development, they treat Palestine as a testing ground for those weapons which they later may apply across the world, in particular in the global south. The surveillance techniques they pioneered in Palestine are used right here in the United States. 

Why did you join this international movement?

We decided to turn our informal rides into a formalized chapter of the Great Ride of Return, an international campaign to support the Gaza Sunbirds. That allows us to better coordinate and be more impactful. It’s not just a protest for the sake of being seen. We want to make a bigger, bolder, more serious impact. That’s why we integrated into the global movement and started organizing under that banner.

You may recognize the reference to “The Great March of Return.” The co-founder and captain of the Gaza Sunbirds, Alaa Al-Dali, lost his leg after being shot by an Israeli sniper during the Great March of Return protests in 2018.

[The Great March of Return was a series of mass demonstrations held by Palestinians along the Gaza-Israeli border from March 30, 2018, to Dec. 27, 2019, to demand that Palestinian refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to their ancestral lands and home they were displaced from in 1948. They also protested the land, air and sea blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt in June 2007 and continues to this day.]

Two Sunbirds have lost their lives in recent Israeli military attacks in Gaza, Ahmed al-Dali  and Saed Qadoum.

Eric Kleppe-Montenegro pumps his fist during a September 2025 ride on Milwaukee’s North Side.

What goals do you have for the rides?

It’s multifaceted. We want to make an ideological change and also a material change. The Gaza Sunbirds represent Palestine on the international sporting stage. They represent Team Palestine in competitions of the International Cycling Federation (UCI). They represent Team Palestine at the Paralympics, like right now at the Asian Olympics. And, in 2028, they’ll be here in the United States at the Olympics in Los Angeles. 

It is very contested. Some people want to deny the very existence of Palestine. So, when the Palestinian flag is up at the Olympics, it shows that Palestine will not be erased, despite the genocide. It’s another political front where they struggle to maintain their presence. 

On the material side, fundraising supports the Gaza Sunbirds themselves and their aid operations in Gaza, where they prepare and distribute food, hold film screenings for children in the camps and other activities you can see on their Instagram.

We did a local fundraiser that goes directly to the international organization earlier this year. We raised 1,132 British pounds (about $1,500), most of it at film screenings at the Cactus Club and an iftar in collaboration with Milwaukee for Palestine.

What impacts have surprised you?

There have been a lot of cool, unintended consequences, like promoting cycling as a whole. We’re pulling people from Milwaukee’s social justice communities, which means a lot more people are getting their bikes out for the first time in a long time or they’re renting Bubbler bikes or they’re buying a new bike. So, we are promoting cycling.

We’re also putting Palestine on the table in the cycling community, which often likes to act apolitical, unless it’s about funding trails or bike lanes or traffic laws. We are showing them it is ok to be political. Sometimes we get a little pushback, saying, ‘This is divisive.’ Well, I don’t think standing against genocide and crimes against humanity is divisive at all. 

“This is a cycling-centric event supporting a para-cycling team. If they were in the United States, no one would call it political. These cyclists are just like us. They deserve a right to live first and foremost. Mm-hmm. They deserve a right to freedom of movement like we enjoy. They deserve to have roads and bikes. They deserve the same human rights as us. There is nothing controversial about that.”

Six cyclists completed the 2025 Milwaukee-to-Madison Great Ride of Return, supporting the Gaza Sunbirds, a team of paracyclists from Gaza.