A large-scale cycling event of the country – VeloForum 2015 has been held firstly in Kryvyi Rih

This year Kryvyi Rih had an honor to host Veloforum which has been held for six years s in different cities of Ukraine (Poltava, Lviv, etc.) and gathered activists of cycling movement of the country.

The event was made possible due to an initiative of City Development Institution of Kryvyi Rih City Council, which has submitted an application to competition for the selection of Veloforum 2015 host cities and has won.

The executive committee of Kryvyi Rih City Council and cycling NGO's of the city, in their turn were pleased to support an idea of holding such an important event for cycling community and made considerable efforts to organize the cycling event.

Within two days - October 10-11 at the premises of Kryvyi Rih National University there were more than 100 participants from different cities of Ukraine, Great Britain, Poland, Germany, Serbia and other countries were discussing topical issues of cycling movement development, shared experiences of creating urban cycle concepts and successful local practices.

Kryvyi Rih, fortunately, in this matter also has much to be proud of. The representatives of the NGOs of the city cyclers presented a series of cycle events of tourism and social direction that brightly illustrated the main focus of the Forum "Re-creation: Cycle as a Means of Transformation of People and Cities."

Moreover, the Veloforum participants examined some practical aspects of cycling movement expansion i.e. organization of cycle schools, municipal cycle rental, publishing of a guide book for cycle tourists, etc.

The next day all participants got incredible impressions and feelings due to cycle excursions around the city, which included an overview of both a historical part of Kryvyi Rih, and industrial one. According to cycle tourists, they saw such landscapes for the first time in their life and even did not expect that there is such a beauty somewhere in Ukraine which can be found city within the boundaries. Jaki Lowe, Vice President of European Cyclists' Federation (UK) noted the originality of routes, combination of going along the comfortable roads and complete impassability and incredible landscapes which were changing all the time, but also were clearly demonstrating the industrial history of the city over the last 50 years.

The main organizers of Veloforum 2015 - NGO "Kyiv Cyclists' Association" (Kyiv) and "Center for Social and Business Initiatives" (Yaremche) highly estimated the organization of the event in Kryvyi Rih and thanked for the appropriate level of preparation.

The closing stage of the event was solemn "passing the baton" to the city of Kharkiv as the accepting city of Veloforum 2016.

Holding Veloforum in Kryvyi Rih has become a significant event, which proved firm intentions of the city to create the necessary conditions for comfortable using a cycle in terms of megapolis and in every possible way to support any initiatives, aimed at promoting cycling movement.

More information about the event is on the official site Veloforum 2015.