Since 2018, the 3rd of June has been synonymous with United Nations World Bicycle Day, and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and its World Cycling Centre (WCC) are this year again organising a host of activities to celebrate this international day dedicated to the bike.
The UCI has teamed up with triple road race UCI World Champion Peter Sagan to launch a photo contest on Instagramon 3 June. People worldwide are invited to post a photo of themselves on their bike on World Bicycle Day (with the mention #WorldBicycleDay and tagging UCI_cycling). The Slovakian athlete will choose his favourite photo, and the winner will receive an exclusive money-can’t-buy UCI World Champion’s jersey signed by Sagan.
Former UCI WCC athlete Eyeru Tesfoam Gebru will be part of the celebrations at the UCI WCC in Aigle, Switzerland. The Ethiopian, who trained at the UCI WCC from 2017 to 2020, will compete in the road race at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as part of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Refugee Team, and last Thursday completed a leg of the Olympic torch relay. For World Bicycle Day, she returns to her former training ground in Aigle, where she will join a lunch ride organised by the UCI for staff, media, local companies and the public. She will also donate a bike to a collection organised in partnership with Velafrica.
It is a poignant donation, as she herself received the bicycle from an association in France, the ALC Association - Agir pour le lien social et la citoyenneté (Promoting social cohesion and citizenship) - and gratefully used it for a year before joining the French UCI Women’s Continental Team, Team Komugi - Grand Est (formerly Team Grand Est-Komugi-La Fabrique).
Following the used bike collection at the UCI WCC, the donated bikes will be repaired and reconditioned before being distributed to communities in need, including to children in refugee camps in Rwanda. This initiative coincides with the organisation of the 2025 UCI Road World Championships, which will be held in the Rwandan capital of Kigali and will be the first time the event is held on the African continent. Members of the public are invited to drop off their bikes at the UCI WCC in Aigle between 17h and 18h30 CET on Monday 3, Wednesday 5 and Friday 7 June.
The UCI has chosen World Bicycle Day to publish its “Ten steps to bike to work” which will encourage more people to use the bicycle as a means of getting to and from work. From bike choice to route mapping to finding ways to make the journey more fun, these tips and more can be found in this dedicated article in the Cycling for All section of the UCI website.
Meanwhile, a UCI Cycling Club event on Strava – the connected fitness subscription platform – calls on all club members to post their World Bicycle Day rides, however short or long, with the aim of reaching as many collective kilometres as possible during the day. We encourage you to join the event by clicking here.
The UCI’s Cycling for All & Sustainability Manager Isabella Burczak is participating in the UNESCO Round Table “Bicycle as the driver of the Sustainable Development Goals”, being held in Paris, France, on 3 June.Organised by the UNESCO Bicycle for All Core Group and UNESCO Secretariat, the round table brings together representatives of UNESCO, the bicycle industry and cycling advocates. Isabella Burczak will join a panel discussing best practices for transforming infrastructure in cities and rural areas to encourage cycling as a catalyst of sustainable development.
Children have been included in the World Bicycle Day celebrations at the UCI WCC, with a series of pump track initiations for local school students organised throughout the day.