The Bike Bus Accelerator has landed in Barcelona
On Friday 3 July, families gathered beside Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf for the first big moment of the Bike Bus Accelerator, a new multi-year programme from Shimano and BYCS that will accelerate bike buses to start, grow and thrive right across Europe.
This launch moment is the opening chapter of a much longer, on-the-ground project with plenty more still to come. Over the coming months, the programme will focus on six cities across Europe: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Glasgow, Utrecht and Vienna, each with its own streets, its own challenges, and its own community ready to make safe cycling to school the norm.
An event built for families
From 08:30, kids and parents arrived by bike bus at the Arc de Triomf, there was free breakfast being served, goodie bags, balloon artists and courtesy of Lazer, free helmets for all the children through the gate. It was a fitting place to begin. With the Tour de France Grand Départ 2026 rolling out of the same city the very next day, but today, it was children on bikes who took centre stage.
The morning centred on the finale of a children’s helmet design competition, run together with Lazer. Every young designer got their moment on stage, and the winning design was revealed as a one-of-a-kind Lazer helmet for the winner Gael and his siblings, that travelled into the Tour de France itself, appearing on Team Picnic PostNL pro riders’ helmets during Stage 2 of the tour.
Children, parents along with special guests Fabio Masahiro Takayanagi (President, Shimano Europe) and 5 time Tour de France winner Miguel Induráin put their names to a Children’s Manifesto, a shared commitment to safer streets and safer routes to school. It’s a small signature carrying a big idea: that every child, in every city, deserves a ride to school worth looking forward to.
Why we’re doing this
A bike bus is a simple idea. A group of children and parents cycle to school together, along a set route, at a set time, picking up more riders along the way. But simple doesn’t mean small. Where a bike bus takes place, it changes how a whole neighbourhood thinks about its streets. It makes cycling as something visible and social. And for the many families who cite traffic safety as the biggest reason they don’t let their children cycle, it creates something powerful: safety in numbers.
Most bike bus organisers today tend to run into the same challenges of planning a safe route, recruiting families and keeping momentum through the winter months. The Bike Bus Accelerator exists to make that easier, working across three principles:
- Knowledge: the route-planning expertise and practical know-how that experienced organisers have already built, shared so nobody has to start from zero.
- Connection: linking volunteers, parents and teachers across cities, so a lesson learned in one place can help a bike bus somewhere else entirely.
- Tools: practical resources and financial support, including a grant programme opening later this year to help kickstart new bike buses.
As Maud de Vries, CEO of BYCS, put it:
“Bike buses are started by parents and PE teachers, often with nothing more than a route map, a group chat and a lot of determination. We want to help more people do this by sharing expertise and helping kickstart new movements. Every child deserves a safe route to school, and families shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel to make that happen.”
And from Ties van Dijk, Advocacy Specialist at Shimano Europe:
“This movement belongs to the parents, teachers and children who ride every week — our role is the one we know best: being the part that helps all the other parts move together. A bicycle only works when every component does its job, and a bike bus is no different.”
This is just the beginning
Today’s celebration was a launch, it’s the first visible moment of a much longer, on-the-ground project, to help kickstart new bike buses and lower the barriers for the volunteers who keep existing ones running. Mark your calendars now, because the next big moment is already set: on 25 September, bike buses around Europe will ride on the same day, in an attempt to set the record for the most number of bike buses ever on one single day, turning a local idea into a Europe wide show of intent.
Want to get involved?
If you’re already running a bike bus, thinking about starting one, or simply want to know more about bringing one to your school or community but do not want to build everything alone, we’d love to hear from you.
Get in touch at connect@bycs.org
More information: Bikebusaccelerator.org
Because every child who cycles is part of something bigger. Grow cycling. Change everything.