How Heinrich and Jan cycled 1,600 kilometres to fulfil a promise to a child in the dark

WHEN the people of Goutrou in Victoria West speak about heroes, they do not point to famous athletes or celebrities. They point to two ordinary men, Jan Swarts and Heinrich Fiellies. 

Jan and Heinrich climbed onto bicycles, neither of them ever having ridden more than 100km before, and they pedalled more than 1,600 kilometres from Parys in the Free State to Bloubergstrand in Cape Town.

They did it for one reason: to bring light to the dark side of their community.

But the real story, the heart of it, began long before the sore muscles and the Karoo wind and the near misses with snakes. It began with a dream.

The dream that changed everything

It was a strange dream and it shook him. A child sitting alone in a pitch-dark home, the kind of darkness that you can feel pressing on your skin.

Then, a few days later, he dreamed the exact same dream. But this time Heinrich saw himself handing a candle to the child. A small light in a sea of black. And as he handed over the candle, he saw, beside the child, a bicycle.

“It bothered me deeply. I could not ignore it,” Heinrich said. 

Unsure what it meant, he went to a respected elder in the community. He described both dreams. The elder listened quietly, then looked him in the eye and said: “Seun, jy moet lig bring.” (My boy, you must bring light) Heinrich asked, “But how?” The elder responded simply: “Jy moet jou fiets gebruik.” (You must use your bicycle)

Heinrich only owned an old courier bicycle, not built for long distances. But word of the dream travelled through the community. One day, a friend surprised him with a proper bike. 

“He just said he felt he needed to do this for me. That was the start of the journey.”

Jan says yes

Heinrich began training alone on the dusty gravel roads around Goutrou. He prayed constantly for strength and guidance. But the more he trained, the more he realised he could not do this alone. “I thought, I need someone who will push me, someone who will walk the road with me.” 

That someone was Jan Swarts.

Heinrich approached Jan with the story, the dream, and the plan. Jan listened quietly, then he smiled. “Yes. This sounds like a challenge. Let us do this,” Jan said.

But Jan didn’t have a proper bike either, and once again, what Heinrich calls “God’s angelic providence” came through. Someone donated a bike and equipment for Jan too. Two men, two donated bicycles, and one impossible dream. But they believed, and that was enough.

Training for the impossible

Neither man had ever ridden further than a casual local distance, and as can be expected, training hurt. Their bodies weren’t used to it. Their minds weren’t ready. But every day they prayed, cycled, fell, stood up again and kept pushing.

“Preparing mentally? Damn, that is a new concept,” Heinrich joked. “We have never cycled over 100 kilometres, and here we were planning to trample 1,000 miles.” 

Jan, always the motivator, had a phrase that became their battle cry: “Ons eet nie stukkies koek nie. Nee, ons eet die hele donnerse koek eenkeer op!” (We don’t eat little pieces of cake. We eat the whole damn cake in one go)

And so they trained like men possessed, for the dream, for the child in the dark, for Goutrou.

This was their dream, their mission: To install 200 solar-powered lights in 200 dark homes in Goutrou, for safety, dignity, and for children growing up in darkness; for families living with the fear of fires caused by candles and paraffin.

The ride begins, and reality hits hard

With this passion to bring light, they left Parys in November 2025, but they still could not grasp the distance ahead of them. “We could not comprehend cycling all the way to Cape Town. It felt unreal,” Heinrich said. The road made it real very quickly.

The extreme heat fried their devices, GPS and phones shut down from overheating. They lost signal for long stretches, which left families at home panicking when they couldn’t track their location. 

“One kilometre suddenly became 10 times 100 metres,” Heinrich said, laughing. “You learn quickly how long a kilometre really is when you’re cycling it.”

Jan, fortunately, has an excellent memory. Even without GPS, he remembered turn-offs and landmarks, guiding them through isolated areas. But the greatest danger was the lack of water.

The mercy of strangers

“Running out of water is a serious danger zone,” Heinrich said. “You must drink sparingly, but also enough. It’s tricky.”

But the miracles kept coming. More than once, help arrived just in time; help like coming across a windpump with a dam full of water when Heinrich felt he was “literally dying”. Then there were cars stopping to offer help, random strangers handing them money to buy food, and people selling water and Coke for R1 “just because”.

One farmer in Orania even came out specifically to assist them. 

“The Lord always sent help. Always. People telling us ‘YOU GOT THIS.’ That carried us,” Heinrich said.

And there were lighter moments too, like when a man laughed at their dusty, exhausted faces and told them: “Julle is nou wat mens plain weg b*f*k noem.”

They also encountered wildlife, some beautiful, some dangerous. 

“I nearly drove over a puff adder,” Heinrich says. “Luckily both of us were too hot and too lazy to fight.”

Pain, prayer and pushing through

Physically, the ride nearly broke Heinrich.

“I struggled with a messed-up backside and crushed sitting bones. The pain was excruciating. But I crawled on, because we promised to bring light to a home in need.”

Jan remained the stronger cyclist, often pulling Heinrich forward, pushing him to the next stop, the next rise, the next break. But through every breakdown, every prayer screamed into the wind, every tear shed on the roadside, they kept moving.

Sometimes Heinrich begged God to turn the wind down “just two degrees”, and he swears it actually happened.

The final battle: the Cape Doctor

When they finally reached the Western Cape, they faced the fiercest enemy of all: the Cape Doctor. “It tried to blow us back to the Karoo,” Heinrich laughed. “We were crying, fighting, screaming, but we crawled on.”

And then … Bloubergstrand. The finish line. The end of the impossible.

Waiting there was someone Heinrich reveres as a mother, someone he hadn’t seen in seven years. “I broke down in tears and hugged her forever,” he said.

The promise of light

For Heinrich, this mission is more than charity. It is a vow. “It means keeping true to a promise to bring light to a family in need,” he said. “Jan and I made a promise. We are still fighting to do just that.”

Though their trip has ended, their goal remains unchanged: They are determined to light up the dark homes in Goutrou. 

Ultimately, the main thing of this ride wasn’t the finish line, the applause, nor the media attention. No, for these men the greatest reward was spiritual: “This is not our story. It is His story. God’s story for Goutrou. We were just the pens He used,” says Heinrich as he recounts the many blessings: Safe places to sleep, strangers paying for accommodation, people cheering them on, getting home to their families, and children calling out to them in the streets: “Awê Oom Hein! Jy en Jan is ysters!”

The story isn’t over

Jan and Heinrich completed the 1,000 Mile Ride for Light, but their mission continues, because until every home in Goutrou has light, these two men will keep pedalling, and believing.

They are planning to do it again next year, and for those who think they could join in, Heinrich doesn’t sugarcoat it. “Go and do it. Just do it. Prepare well. Ignore the naysayers. Take lots of water. Have a backup vehicle. Nee man, gaan doen dit net,” he says.

And, of course, Jan’s famous line about how they eat cake lives on.

Ongoing support

For those who would like to support the cause a donation can be made using one of the following methods:

Online via GoGetFunding

Direct Bank Transfer

Account Name: Goutrou Ride for Change

Bank: Standard Bank

Account Number: 102 584 90657

Branch Code: 051001