Cycle Jozi Week will promote the use of bicycles

Events will include cycling activations in Orlando, Diepsloot, Braamfontein and the Sandton CBD, a two-day seminar on creating best practice cycling infrastructure, a national conference on creating cycling friendly cities and will culminate on Sunday, 22 March with a third Freedom Ride, this time between Sandton, Alexandra, Houghton and surrounding suburbs.

This week-long cycling initiative follows from the two successful Freedom Rides held last year, which attracted more than 5000 riders.

Reducing the city's traffic congestion, making it more eco-friendly through less carbon fumes in the air and encouraging a healthy lifestyle amongst its residents, are just three of the important elements that cycling can bring to Joburg.

The City of Johannesburg wants to encourage more residents of Joburg to make use of cycle transport and use the cycle lanes that are being built in and around the city.

Cycle Jozi Week has been made possible through a partnership between key stakeholders including the Cycle Jozi Forum, Hollard Insurance, Qhubeka, the National and Provincial Departments of Transport and the Johannesburg Urban Cyclist Association.

Activation ride

The opening leg of the Cycle Jozi Week will be a 2.5 km 'activation' ride from Fourways towards Diepsloot on Monday, 16 March. The focus of this ride it to highlight safety issues especially for cyclists commuting from Diepsloot.

On Tuesday, 17 March, learners and residents of Soweto will take to the newly constructed cycle lanes in Orlando. At lunch hour on Wednesday, 18 March, cyclists will take to the streets of Braamfontein, on the newly constructed cycle lanes along the university corridor linking WITS and UJ campuses. On Friday, 20 March, #Decongest will be launching the Cycle Fridays campaign for Sandton commuters and in the evening Critical Mass will take to the streets in the inner city.

The City of Johannesburg and its partners expect cycling enthusiasts to come out in numbers throughout the week, but none more so than at the final event of Cycle Jozi Week on Sunday, 22 March, known as the Freedom Ride. The Freedom Ride symbolically links up communities separated by apartheid - Sandton and Alexandra - and takes cyclists past the Mandela house in Houghton before going back to Sandton.

Registration for the Freedom Ride has already opened and more details can be found at www.freedomride.org.za or on the FreedomRideJozi Facebook page.

Away from the saddle, the Cycle Jozi Week will also include several workshops and seminars.

A two-day SAICE Cycle Jozi Training Workshop for engineers and planners on designing cycling infrastructure will be held on 18 and 19 March. On Friday, 20 March, the National Department of Transport and partners will host a National Cycle Cities Workshop to bring together planners and bicycle activists from around South Africa to share experiences.

Finally the City of Johannesburg will launch the Eco-Mobility World Festival (to be held in Joburg in October this year) during this week.