Bikes4Ukraine – The need for bikes in Ukrainian cities

Mikael talks to bike activist Natalia about the need for bikes in Ukrainian cities after viewing the destruction in Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin and Hostumel. There is a great need for bikes since the roads are either bombed or destroyed by tanks and trucks, there is a gas shortage and there is little public transport running.

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Natalia, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. It’s amazing to be here. You come from a village 12 km from here, right? And so you come to Borodyanka and Bucha like, most your life, right? – Yes. All I need to know, really, is

Is there a need for bikes in a city like this? Do they need bikes? Yeah, because the Russians actually stole or destroyed most of the public transport. And while we have some options, tickets are really expensive. It’s really a big lack of transport. And you have to get to the shops, get medicine

Get humanitarian aid. People need need to get around somehow. And bicycles are an option. We saw some people waiting for humanitarian aid on the main street. There were some bikes, some really cool, old bikes. I love vintage bikes, but a lot of those other people, they could also have bikes.

It would just make their getting around in the city, their A to B, much quicker. So, I mean, if we brought a bunch of bikes, do you think that they would be welcome? Do you think that they would be used? Yeah, sure.

Like some people coming to this place are coming from five, six, eight kilometers away, from the villages Some are ten or twelve km away from here. So if there are bicycles, they can just ride quickly to town or even just go to shopping or to the doctor.

So now I just if a truck rolls up here and people are waiting for humanitarian aid, food, of course, most important. But if we rolled up with a truck here with a hundred bikes, do you think the people would say, yes, dobra? Sure.

Seriously, you think they’d be happy about it? – Yes. You saw, there were maybe ten people with bikes. And the others didn’t have any. you know, let’s be honest, there’s a need. And now I’m here feeling the need and seeing it.

But you live here and and so you know, even better than I do. So I’m so happy that that there is a need for bikes, to come from Denmark and the rest of Europe. So that makes me feel much better about, what we’re doing, right? We didn’t know about each other.

And you have Bikes to Ukraine and I started with my team Bikes4Ukraine. So but we’re kind of doing the same thing. Tell me about your project. Yeah, our main idea is to deliver bikes to volunteers who help people, also to people from the critical infrastructure institutions and also, like, social workers,

To have bikes to actually deliver care and humanitarian aid to people who really need it. And you went and spoke to the European Cyclists Federation annual meeting in Berlin last month, I think. Right. How how was this received? Do they understand the need when you told them about it? Yeah. Yeah.

They were touched by our presentation Yeah. Because we really showed the need for bikes in different cities of Ukraine. In some cities the road infrastructure is destroyed, there is no transport and also in cities much bigger than this one. Yeah. And they understood. I think it’s interesting, you know,

Working with the city of Lviv, they’re amazing at taking care of the refugees. But their issue is that there are so many refugees who can’t get around and there are too many cars in Lviv. So the bicycle is kind of like a European solution,

To get people around the city and used in the refugee camps. Right. But here it’s different, right? It’s bombed roads, no public transport. You know, people need to transport humanitarian aid home to their village eight kilometers away. So I’m in this one town – you guys brought me here.

But there’s probably a lot of towns and cities like this in Ukraine. Yeah. Like the whole region was occupied. Most of the communities were destroyed Yeah. And most of the transport was stolen or destroyed. Yeah. And then, of course, in the Donbas and Eastern Ukraine, where the war is

Even more intense right now, there’s going to be a need out there. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.