Africa Rising Cycling Podcast

On 29 March 2026, 17-year-old Jonathan Muhawenimana won the Rwandan Junior MTB XCO National Championships. This was a great win for a rising young Rwandan cycling star. Jonathan is the son of Rafiki Uwimana, who, alongside Adrien Niyonshuti, was one of the founding riders of Team Rwanda 20 years ago. Jonathan is currently in the USA on a training and racing program, and we would like to give a sho...

Per UCI rule 1.2.029: "National road championships shall be organised during the last full week of the month of June" and over the last few days, we have seen 12 African nations organise their National road championships, including Eritrea, Algeria, Mauritius alongside relatively new countries like Kenya and Eswatini. South Africa and Namibia held theirs in February. On the podcast today...

Over a decade ago in the DRC, Charles-Guy Makongo already had his hands full helping the country's most vulnerable people access justice and avoid violence in his day job working there as Country Director for the American Bar Association. However, in his free time, after meeting them when out for a bike ride, he took some 30 teenage cyclists under his wing and created the Goma Cycling Club. Fa...

As the first episode of our new season, this discussion could not be further from recent podcasts talking about African professional cycling, however, as we will discuss, they are still linked, all through the bicycle. In this episode, we are talking real grass-roots cycling. We are joined by Joshua Poppel, the Executive Director of the Village Bicycle Project (VBP) non-profit. VBP has been operat...

This week, we sat down with Dahmane Abdesslam, the Principal of the Madar Pro Cycling Team . Madar are African-owned and registered in Algeria, and have had a nix of Algerian, African and international riders on their roster., since launching as a UCI team just two years ago. Their ProCyclingStats bio can give you more infomation. Algerian star riders like Azzedine Lagab and Youcef Reguigui have b...

As we enter June, we thought it a good time to do a quick recap on some of the big headlines in African road cycling so far, and some things to watch out for in June: We take a look at the men's and women's UCI league tables for the 2026 season so far. Eritrea dominates the men's rankings taking the 1-5 spots, and kudos to Eritrean Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar) for topping the men'...

In this episode, we sat down with Matthias Schnapka, the owner of Team BIKE AID, one of the most prolific supporters of young African professional cyclists in history. BIKE AID is a German professional cycling team founded in 2005 as a non-profit association, and based on a unique cycling community of over 1,200 supporters. BIKE AID stands for enjoying cycling, nature and social commitment. Matthi...

We are most excited to share this podcast today! Merhawi "Mera" Kudus is truly one of the pioneers of African professional cycling. After excelling for the UCI World Cycling Center, he joined the MTN Qhubeka Team in 2014 alongside some of the big names in African cycling: Louis Meintjes, Adrien Niyonshuti, Tsgabu Grmay, Daniel Teklehaimanot and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg. The success of...

In our latest podcast, we sat down with Alexandre Mayer , the leading male cyclist from the island of Mauritius. The 28-year-old rider is in his second year at the Pro Continental level with the Burgos Burpellet BH team, alongside Merhawi Kudus. Alex took the 'Best African' jersey at the 2.2 Tour du Benin and when we spoke he was next heading to Azerbaijan for the 2.1 Baku Khankendi Cyclin...

In this episode, Kim and Jeremy on our team sat down with Salami Avocetien of the Benin Cycling Federation. At just 21 years old, he speaks French, English, four local languages, has his UCI Level 2 Coaching Qualification (Level 3 will be achieved in one month), made his debut as a DS (Directeur Sportif) at Tour du Benin - accompanied by our CEO Kimberly Coats - for the Benin National Team , heads...

Two week's ago we featured the father-son Uwimana cycling dynasty in Rwanda, and we now move our focus 3000km to Dire Dawa in eastern Ethiopia, home of the famous Rogora cycling family! On this edition of the Africa Rising Cycling Podcast, we talked to 22-year-old Kiya Rogora , a professional cyclist who has already raced around the world for pro teams and for Ethiopia. Kiya recently launched...

This weekend, teams from around Africa, Europe and Asia will arrive in Cotonou, on the Atlantic shore of Benin, in the heart of West Africa, for the UCI 2.2 Tour du Bénin! We sat down with race organiser, President of Bénin Cycling, famous artist and passionate cycling advocate, Romuald Hazoumé, to talk all things Tour du Bénin. He is one of Africa's leading cycling voices at the national Fede...

On 29 March 2026, 17-year-old Muhawenimana Rafiki Jonathan won the Rwandan Junior MTB XCO National Championships. This was a great win for this rising young Rwandan star. However, this journey began twenty years ago, three years before he was born, when his father, the famous Rafiki 'Kiki' Uwimana* joined Adrien Niyonshuti, coach Jonathan 'Jock' Boyer and the original members of th...

As a soft spoken, 58kg, diminutive South African, Louis Meintjes has not spent a huge amount of time in the media's eye, preferring his riding and results do the talking. However he is a rider to whom all aspiring World Tour riders from Africa - and around the world - should pay attention. He has ridden in 20 Grand Tours, including 7 editions of the Tour de France, which is more than any other...

In this episode, we had an in-depth chat with Jean-Pierre van Zyl, the Director of the UCI's World Cycling Centre programme in Africa. He is based at the excellent WCC facility in Paarl, South Africa. JP often avoids the limelight, but has quietly been working with Africa's leading athletes for over two decades. From the big guns like Biniam Girmay and Kim Le Court Pienaar, to the new crop...

The CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation women's professional team has been supporting African female rising talent for several years. In 2026, they have signed two of Africa's most exciting young prospects: Ethiopia's Tsige Kahsay Kiros , and Eritrea's Monalisa Araya . Ahead of this duo from Easy Africa making their debut together on 21 March, we caught up with Beth Durea, a co-own...

Whilst we were on a trip to Namibia to discuss the creation of a new Virtual Performance Center there for youth development, we took some time to drop in one of Africa's pioneers in professional cycling: Dan "From Nam" Craven. Since retiring from professional cycling around the world, Dan established Onguza Bicycles , a unique handmade, custom steel bicycle manufacturing company in t...

In 2025, Kim Le Court Pienaar arrived in world cycling! In one incredible season she became Africa's most successful professional cyclist, winning one of the celebrated 'Monuments' and holding the 'maillot jaune' of the Tour de France longer than any other African rider in history, at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift . Kim rides for the AG Insurance - Soudal Team and is pas...

For this episode of the Africa Rising Cycling Podcast, we wanted to hear the thoughts of some of the most knowledgeable people in the cycling world - the race commentators! We are proud to be joined by three of the finest, and folk with whom we have worked on many Africa related projects: Phil Liggett MBE , Hannah Walker, and Anthony McCrossan . Phil, Hannah and Anthony talk about witnessing the h...

Many folk will not know the name Jamie Bissell. He avoids social media and the spotlight, however he is one of the most vital cogs in the success of African cycling for nearly 15 years! Hailing from California, Jamie is an elite UCI mechanic and we talk through his journey (so far!) in African cycling, which started when his mother shared the now legendary Philip Gourevitch’s 2011  New Yorker  art...

With the 2026 Tour du Rwanda starting on Sunday, Jeremy and Kim take a deep dive into the key facts, riders and data points for the 18th edition of the race ! (Very much fuelled by ProCyclingStats data!) We look at the dominance of Eritrea in this race since its elevation to the UCI 2.1 level, with race winners like Henok Mulubrhan and Merhawi Kudus there to make it count. Alongside them, young ta...

In our latest episode, we are joined by two very important actors in the world of cycling, and with whom we at Africa Rising Cycling have worked for many years: Jacques Landry and Jean-Pierre van Zyl (JP as he is known) from the UCI’s World Cycling Center (WCC) . Jacques is based in Aigle in Switzerland and JP in Paarl in South Africa. Jacques leads the work of the WCC globally, with JP on point f...

In our latest episode, we talked to Alex Carera, one of the key athlete managers in the world of cycling, known as the 'super agent' to many! He founded the A&J All Sports agency in 1997 which looks after star riders like Tadej Pogacar, Biniam Girmay and Henok Mulubrhan . More recently, we worked with Alex to help Tsige Kahsay Kiros (Ethiopia) secure a three year deal with the CANYON /...

The Re-Cycle Charity provide young people across Africa with access to a quality used bicycle.​ They refurbish quality used bicycles in the UK and ship them regularly to seven projects across Africa, providing access to income, education, wellbeing, and creating long lasting improvement to livelihoods in Africa. We spoke with Charlotte Ward, Re-Cycle's Executive Director, about their mission,...

Welcome to the latest episode of the Africa Rising Cycling podcast! Join us as we speak to Stefan de Bod and Byron Munton , two South African pro cyclists who have joined the newly launched Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team. The Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team was co-founded by George and Rich Hincapie, and is aiming to hit the pro cycling scene hard in 2026, with a strong squad of US, South Afr...