ancycling

Our pleasure! :)

The main goal for the academy is to provide opportunities for young Rwandans to learn skills that they would not be able to otherwise. Although the curriculum will be cycling-centric, the main focus will be education. One of the prerequisites of being able to be a part of the academy is that the students are still in school. We will have English lessons, enterprise/business lessons, and nutrition and hygiene lessons (these will be available for family members too). On top of this, we will provide 3 full meals a day, fresh water, and financial help with school fees (the average annual school fees in Rwanda are $25. For a year. Crazy! Just imagine how many lives you could change with so little money!).

On the cycling front, we will be working on developing a regular training routine and building up to entering local races with our team. There will be opportunity to progress up to Team Rwanda, either as a rider or in a support role too. Team Rwanda are working towards having an all-African team in the Tour de France by 2020, and if we can help with that, then that's fantastic. However, community and personal development, in and out of the sport, is the central focus of the project.

Thanks for the question!

Chris Froome has been a huge inspiration to not just African cyclists, but Africans as a whole. He regularly visits Kenya to support charitable projects and the Kenya team (http://www.kenyanriders.com/). The biggest impact he's had has been to raise the profile of African cycling. Along with MTN-Qhubeka, who will hopefully be in the Giro this year, he has been the best thing to yet happen to African cycling. Scouting for talent is basically how the Rwandan national team started, but the project developed beyond being much more than just a sporting team once it was clear the impact that the project was having on people's lives. In Rwanda, Adrien is a national hero. We rode with him and some of the academy students in November, and there was barely a moment where he wasn't waving to people at the roadside.

Trek make fantastic bikes! My personal bike is a Trek, and MTN-Qhubeka use Trek bikes, along with many other pro teams. So long as you go with a major bike brand, you can't really go too wrong!

Thank you so much! The film is available through the official site (http://risingfromashesthemovie.com/) and since the film was privately funded up-front by investors, all the money from DVD/itunes sales goes to the Rising From Ashes Foundation (one of our partners) to help support development in Rwanda.

That's absolutely fantastic, that donation will pay for a child's education for a year. A whole year. The 5 minutes you just took out of your day to do that will impact a child's life forever. You're the inspiration!

Without the support and interest of people like you, we wouldn't be able to do this.

Thank you!

Absolutely! The way that cycling has changed Adrien's (and the other members of Team Rwanda's; check out their website: https://teamrwandacycling.org/) life is beyond comprehension. Before he travelled to race in America with Team Rwanda, he had never even been in a car, let alone travelled outside of Rwanda. On a more basic level, having a bike in Rwanda can cut the journey time of a child travelling to school by 75%. It can be a form of income in the shape of a bicycle taxi or a cargo bicycle (when we were in Rwanda in November we saw a man carrying 300kg of potatoes on an ordinary Black Mamba steel framed bike!!). It can be the route to a new life; it is most definitely a force for good. Like you say, it is such a shame that people like Armstrong have overshadowed it.

MTN-Qhubeka do so much good work in Africa. They have provided 200 new bicycles for Rwandan children (we're currently waiting on them to be released from customs), as well as thousands more bikes all over Africa. Check out their site too, such a good cause! http://qhubeka.org/2013/ Any thing that can raise the profile of such a worthy cause (such as MTN being in the Giro) can only be a good thing for Africa as a whole, and especially our project as we're so closely linked to them through Adrien! Not only this, but Africa (and Rwanda especially, it seems) has so much potential in the sport. Sport is such a sustainable and stable tool for development, and raising the profile of African sport is perfect for maintaining, and increasing, development in the continent.

Thanks for the question!

Check out Team Rwanda's website: https://teamrwandacycling.org/, they regularly race all over the continent and are in fact in action in the La Tropicale Amissa Bongo in Gabon this coming week. This is one of the major races in the UCI Africa Tour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_UCI_Africa_Tour) which is growing every year, and for the 2013/14 season consists of 31 races. On top of these, there are many local races, especially in Rwanda.

The top countries for cycling in Africa are considered to be Eritrea and South Africa, mainly because they have been focussing on cycling for the longest. Rwanda is definitely catching them up though! Team Rwanda had a rider place 4th in the continental championships just before Christmas. An amazing result given that the rider has only been riding properly for less than 2 years!

Europeans will, for now at least, always have the upper hand. The extensive experience and incomparable levels of funding mean that African countries/teams are at a huge disadvantage. Saying that, MTN-Qhubeka are changing this, especially given their hopeful wildcard slot at the Giro next year.

The dream is for Rwanda to become the African cycling hub. It definitely has all the raw ingredients to make this happen; an abundance of natural talent, a supportive population (over 3.5 million, over a quarter of the population, turned out to support the Tour of Rwanda last year), incredible riding, a stable yet growing economy, and a desire to be the best. The drive of the riders is so inspiring.

Thanks for the great questions!