About us

Who we are

U-Cycle (legal name Civic Organization ‘Kyiv Cyclists’ Association’) is a Ukrainian non-governmental non-profit membership expert organization that advocates urban cycling as a sustainable and safe transport mode.

Brief history

The organization was founded as a Civic Organization ‘Kyiv Cyclists’ Association’ in 2007 in Kyiv, Ukraine by civic actors as a membership organization to unite the local community in advocating for safe cycling infrastructure development and in promotion of urban cycling, sustainable mobility and road safety. From 2014 we work systemically at the national level. From 2019 we run our activities under the brand name U-Cycle and work for Ukrainian cities and communities (hromadas).

Mission

Our mission is to create opportunities for comfortable and safe cycling.

U-Cycle is yoU, Urban, Ukraine.

Our values:

Honesty
Equality and openness
Trust
Cooperation
Expertise
Responsibility
Proactiveness
Sustainability

Photo credit by U-Cycle and Ukrainer

Strategic areas of work:

Advocacy of urban solutions for sustainable mobility and safety at the national and local level
Creation of a network of agents of change and capacity development in cities and communities
Promotion of bicycle transport and road safety
Humanitarian support of communities for sustainable mobility
Organizational development

Photo credit by U-Cycle

#BikesForUkraine: humanitarian support of communities for sustainable mobility

In the spring of 2022, together with 5 other NGOs from Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Uzhhorod and Odesa, we launched the #BikesForUkraine international campaign to make humanitarian and other aid more accessible to those who need it most. During the war, the bicycle became the main means of transport in Ukrainian cities and communities affected by russian military aggression. Due to the destroyed public transport systems and the lack of fuel, the bicycles have become almost the only means of mobility for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the movement of personnel of critical public services. Away from the frontlines, many of our beneficiaries use bicycles as a means of psychological relief.

During two years of the campaign, we managed to hand over 1,827 bicycles – this increased the mobility and sustainability of the Ukrainian volunteer movement, local governance entities, social workers, doctors, police officers, teachers, railway workers, residents of the de-occupied territories, internally displaced people, as well as children in 73 communities of Chernihiv region. Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. The bicycles were handed over thanks to the help of 84 #BikesForUkraine ambassadors — NGOs, cycling communities, bicycle businesses, city municipalities, international and European institutions from 18 countries (Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, France and other countries). There are three bike repair shops in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Odesa. Volunteer workshops are held there regularly to inspect and repair bicycles for the #BikesForUkraine campaign.

#BikesForUkraine Instagram

Advocacy for sustainable mobility and road safety

Our organization is the biggest advocate of urban cycling mobility in Ukraine and successfully advocated at the national level:

50 km/hr speed limits in urban areas, cycling-friendly street design standards and guidelines (DBN), goals for cycling in the Transport Strategy of Ukraine 2030 (all adopted in 2018)
state Ukrainian State Standards (DSTU) for planning and designing cycling infrastructure were developed under the leadership of our NGO (got the state standardization in 2020)
bike-friendly amendments to the Traffic Code of Ukraine (were adopted in 2021)
the development of the National Cycling Strategy as technical support of UNDP for the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine (2022)
the integration of bicycle safe education and promotion of sustainable mobility in Ukrainian schools for the sake of better road safety for children and youth in Ukraine within the national campaign Bike2School (2021-2024).
new topics on bicycle safety and traffic rules for cyclists were included into the “Basics of Health” curriculum for grades 6-9 of Ukrainian schools (2022).
For years we did a lot of research, translations and other analytical work to use it as an instrument in our advocacy.

Photo credit by U-Cycle

Advocacy in Kyiv

We have been advocating the safe cycling infrastructure in Kyiv since the occurrence of the informal community of cycling activists ‘Green transport to the green city!’ after a high-profile fatal cycling accident in 2004.

In 2007, we registered the NGO Kyiv Cyclists Association.
In 2013, we made the first recreational Health Routes together with a pharmaceutical corporation in 6 parks of Kyiv.
Since 2013, we have been helping city councils in many cities and communities of Ukraine to develop cycling infrastructure development concepts (cycling concepts).
Since 2014, we have been counting cyclists in Kyiv to see the dynamics of cycling traffic in the city and use this data to advocate for safe cycling infrastructure in the city.
In 2015, we successfully advocated for the first cycling route in Kyiv and bicycle parking in the funicular.
In 2018, the Kyiv City Council adopted the Kyiv Cycling Concept, which was developed with the active participation of our organization.
In 2019 the cycling network development sector was established in the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the Kyiv City Administration. Afterwards a lot of cycling infrastructure was built on the city roads.
In December 2021, the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko announced 200 km of cycling infrastructure in the capital. In 2021, the network of cycle paths and cycle lanes was increased by more than 80 km.
In 2022 at the beginning of invasion to Ukraine the cycling network development sector in Kyiv was liquidated. In 2022, for the first time in the eight years of our research, counting volunteers recorded the traffic by cycling infrastructure. Cyclists’ count during martial law showed that Kyiv residents use bicycles more as a means of transport for commuting to work or on business.
In 2023, together with other public initiatives, we managed to renew the Kyiv city workshop. It is a working group with representatives of the communities, official representatives of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA, communal enterprises, and the police, which reviews street repair and reconstruction projects and improves internal communication between local authorities. Thanks to the participation of the U-Cycle community in this process, many proposals regarding safe cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, accessibility were made and taken into account.

Photo credit by U-Cycle

Creation of the network of agents

Bike Mentors network in 2023-2024 – To provide cycling safety education for local communities and schoolchildren we developed a special free online course ‘How to become a bike mentor: all about cycling and road safety’ (+1545 registered participants in 2024) and created a network of +74 sertificared bike mentors among teachers, cycling aсtivists, police officers, relatives of children and so on. The course was developed within campaign Bike2School on the basis of the educational programme of professional development ‘Basics of Bike Mentoring’, approved by the State Scientific Institution ‘Institute for Modernisation of Education Content’ on 28 March 2023. The National Bike to School Campaign was implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine to integrate cycling safety education into Ukrainian school education.

Photo credit by bike mentor Petro Oleksiuk from Chernivtsi region in Ukraine

Summer school ‘Streets for People’ in 2021 – To generate the new Ukrainian community of traffic planning and design engineers, we organized a summer school ‘Streets for People’ in Kyiv engaged with leading German and Ukrainian experts. The participants learned new approaches for transport and urban planning theoretically and developed the album of typical solutions for four streets in the Podil district of Kyiv practically. The case was selected in partnership with the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the executive body of Kyiv City Council.

Photo credit by U-Cycle

Bike Camps – for years we organized two-day training on advocacy and development of NGO for cycling activists from all over Ukraine. The last one was hold on March 25-26, 2023 in Kyiv. The goal was to support and develop civil society and the bicycle movement in Ukraine during the war, to provide effective tools for successful advocacy and control of local cycling policies, and to promote the development of safe, convenient cycling infrastructure locally.

Photo credit by U-Cycle

Veloforums – Since 2008 we organized the international conference Veloforum in different cities of Ukraine (Uzhgorod, Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Lviv, Poltava, Yevpatoria, Kyiv, and Lutsk). Before the invasion to Ukraine it was an annual interdisciplinary conference on the edge of transportation policy, sustainable development and civil society. The main target groups of the event are cycling advocates, local authorities, urban planning and transport engineers, and students. Veloforum 2023 in Kyiv was about the results of the Bike2school campaign in Ukraine, road safety education and school mobility.

Promotion of bicycle transport and road safety

Cycling May challenge – We launched for the first time the all-Ukrainian Bike2School national competition among Ukrainian schools in the format of challenge ‘Cycling May’. For the 1st of May 2024 we involved 225 school participants from different regions of East, West, North and South of Ukraine. 101 schools fulfilled all the requirements of the challenge. During the May of 2024 the school children and teachers commuted bike to school 67 000 times. ‘Cycling May’ is promoting healthy lifestyles and sustainable mobility among schools, children, secondary students, teaching staff and parents and guardians. Through fun combined with elements of competition our campaign popularizes the bicycle as a means of transportation to school, teaches good and healthy habits that continue even after the campaign ends.
Cycling promo events – For years we organized annual events in Kyiv to promote urban cycling. There were dozens of Bike2Works, Bike Rides for Girls, bike safety schools, urban cycling tours and European Mobility Weeks in Kyiv. The formats of our events have become popular in other Ukrainian cities.
Bike Festivals – In 2018, we organized bike festivals in seven eastern cities of Ukraine together with local cycling activists within the project ‘VeloShid’ / ‘Cycling through Donbas and beyond’ in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to promote the development of cycling and community building. In 2023, we shared our practices and developed education materials at schools and communities through bicycle festivals in 15 pilot schools of Bike2School campaign.
Promotion of cycling for business. We have developed guidelines for the location and design of bicycle parking for offices, shops and other public facilities. Since 2010, we have held the annual competition ‘Cycling Employer of the Year’ for 10 years to award the most bike-friendly offices in Kyiv and then in other cities of Ukraine. In 2019, we launched the Bike Friendly Company certification programme for businesses in Kyiv. We tried to make cycling promotion and infrastructure a sustainable business practice and a part of CSR.