When Thomas Timm set off for Paris with Team Rynkeby for the first time in 2017, his heart was filled with grief — but also with hope. Two years earlier, he and his wife Line had lost their eight-year-old daughter to cancer.

Line Timm smiles when she thinks back to the photo that the Team Rynkeby Foundation posted on its website during the 2017 ride to Paris.

In the picture, her husband Thomas stands at a rest area in the north-eastern corner of the Netherlands — soaked through, shivering with cold and wearing a strained smile — as he tries to eat a bread roll and drink a cup of coffee during a rain-soaked lunch break on the fourth stage of the ride.

“He looks ill. Is he okay?” a concerned friend asked over the phone. But Line was not worried.

“I thought it must have been hard for him. It was a cold and rainy day, and I could see it was taking its toll. But I wasn’t worried,” Line Timm says today.

“We are not the kind of people who give up. Thomas is the type who just does what needs to be done. He was also the one who returned to work the quickest after Lærke’s death,” she continues.

When Lærke fell ill

Two and a half years earlier, the Timm family’s everyday life in Herning had been turned upside down when their youngest daughter, Lærke, suddenly became ill.

She was just seven years old — lively, curious and always on the move. She did gymnastics and handball and loved playing with her friends. No one had ever imagined that she could become seriously ill.

That changed when one day she began to squint slightly with one eye.

“We took her to an ophthalmologist. There was a long waiting time, but my mother helped us get in quickly by giving us her appointment. As a result, Lærke was given glasses that were supposed to correct her vision,” Line Timm explains.

But the glasses did not help, and the family was therefore referred to the hospital.

“It was between Christmas and New Year when Thomas went there with her. At that point, there was nothing alarming,” she says.

As both Line and Thomas were working, Line asked her mother to accompany Lærke to a follow-up scan at the hospital. What was meant to be a routine check became the beginning of a nightmare.

“We had never imagined it could be something serious. Then suddenly my mother sent a message saying that the doctors had seen something on the scan they didn’t like, and that we needed to come immediately,” Line Timm recalls.

“You must have come to the wrong place”

The concern turned out to be a tumour, and Lærke was quickly referred to specialists at Skejby Hospital.

Still, it was hard for Line and Thomas to understand that their little daughter was seriously ill.

“When we arrived at the department, the medical secretary actually said: ‘I think you’ve come to the wrong place.’ She didn’t think we were supposed to be there, because Lærke was jumping around and dancing. They were used to seeing very sick children — children who couldn’t eat or hardly move. But Lærke was lively,” Line Timm remembers.

The doctors hoped it was a benign tumour, but they could not promise anything.

“At the time, we didn’t have proton therapy in Denmark, so treatment options were limited. After a few hours, we were sent home again. And the next day, Lærke actually went to school. She wasn’t ill in that sense — just cross-eyed. She only became truly ill once the treatment began,” she says.

She knew she was going to die

The disease progressed, and the treatment did not work. Line and Thomas knew it was serious — and so did Lærke.

“She knew she was ill. And when we were eventually told that there was nothing more to be done, she also knew that she was going to die,” Line Timm says quietly.

“She dealt with it in her own way — very maturely, actually. She chose which clothes she wanted to wear in her coffin, and she knew who would carry her. She even told one of the nurses that she was going to die from this. The nurse was completely shaken — but Lærke just knew.”

Line pauses briefly.

“I think she had a strong intuition. We had told her that there was no more treatment, and she knew that cancer is something you can die from. We hoped until the very end that they would be able to help her, but she probably understood more than we realised,” she says.

Lærke died on August 6th, 2015. Eight years old.

Team Rynkeby and carrying on the fight

After Lærke’s death, the family found different ways to move forward.

For Thomas, the bicycle became a symbol of action.

“The first time Thomas mentioned Team Rynkeby was already in 2015 — shortly after Lærke’s death. He wanted to ride in 2016, but I said no. I simply couldn’t cope with it — we were far too close to everything. But the year after, there was no doubt. That was what he needed to do. And it was exactly the right time,” Line Timm says.

Team Rynkeby became a new community for Thomas — and for the rest of the family.

“It actually meant a lot. We were able to raise money, and that gave us a sense of doing something active. It wasn’t just grief and helplessness — we could contribute to something that helped other children and families,” Line Timm says, continuing:

“Thomas got the chance to make a difference — to raise money for something that we were not able to achieve for our own child. It meant something to him that he could do something concrete, instead of just sitting with the grief.”

Meaning, community and hope

The ride to Paris in 2017 was the first of three for Thomas.

Today, he no longer rides with Team Rynkeby, but he still cycles — and still on the same yellow bike that took him to Paris shortly after Lærke’s death. Her name is written on the wheels.

“Cycling and fundraising became his way of continuing the fight. And it must be said that Team Rynkeby has raised a great deal of money for childhood cancer in recent years — especially for research into brain tumours. That means a lot to us,” Line Timm says.

When she sees a group of yellow riders on the road today, she still feels a small flutter in her stomach.

“Our youngest son was very young when he started shouting, ‘There are some Rynkeby riders!’ whenever he saw cyclists dressed in yellow. The local cycling club also rides in yellow, so I had to explain to him that not everyone in a yellow jersey was a ‘real’ rider. But when you know the story behind it, it means something very special.”

Line Timm smiles once more.

The man in the photo from 2017 is not just a cold, rain-soaked cyclist. He is a father who found a way out of grief — meaning, and a community.

This story is one of 10 gathered to mark Team Rynkeby’s 25th anniversary — stories about people who have helped shape our journey. Those who fight for others. Those who’ve received help. And those we’ve lost along the way.