Le Tour de France is excited to announce that during the sixteenth stage of the race on Tuesday, 18 July, we will be promoting our continued partnership with the Qhubeka Charity (“Qhubeka”). The #QhubekaDay campaign seeks to encourage fans around the world to donate to Qhubeka and help the charity to change children’s lives with bicycles in Africa.
We have chosen 18 July because it is recognised as ‘Mandela Day’ – an official UNESCO International Day – which celebrates the birthday of one of South Africa’s most famous children. Our relationship with Qhubeka is a key part of Le Tour de France’s ‘École Solidaire – Un Vélo pour Tous!’ campaign.
The 18 July will be #QhubekaDay at Le Tour de France and will welcome Awet Aman, the recently crowned Eritrean National Road Race Champion, who will be the first rider down the ramp in the Individual Time Trial that day at 11:00. Awet is currently training nearby with the UCI’s World Cycling Centre (UC WCC) team and has agreed to take on this unique challenge. He will attempt the full 22km ITT on a single speed Qhubeka bicycle.
Anthony Fitzhenry, Qhubeka’s founder :
“We are very excited about #QhubekaDay and hope that fans of Le Tour de France will support Awet’s challenge by making donations to help us here at Qhubeka to continue to change lives with bicycles. We are proud to have held a distribution of over 800 bicycles to children in Eritrea a few years ago, and we wish Awet the best of luck with this ride.”
Alongside this live event at Le Tour de France, we are also pleased to announce that Zwift, official partner of Le Tour de France and le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, will be running multiple #QhubekaDay races every two hours on their global online fitness platform on Tuesday, 18 July.
These virtual #QhubekaDay races will challenge riders to race each other over the course on single speed Qhubeka bicycles, which have been built into the game exclusively for these events. Zwift’s iconic Ride On ‘thumbs up’ graphic will be replaced with Qhubeka’s open hand, which the charity uses to symbolise their strategy to ‘give a hand up not a hand out’.
Participants will be asked to make a donation to support the charity on #QhubekaDay.
More information can be found on ‘A Bicycle For All’ and donations can be made at Givengain.
