The distances are long. A bicycle makes them shorter

Most of Rwanda is hilly. In the west the hills are so steep that people mostly travel on foot. As you head east from Kigali, though, the land becomes gentler after Kayonza and Ngoma. The fields turn from green to dry gold, and solitary acacia trees begin to appear.

Then you notice the bicycles.

They’re on every road into Kirehe, a district bordering Tanzania and Burundi, where the Kagera River drops over Rusumo Falls. The district covers 1,176 square kilometres, and the 2022 census counted 460,860 people, most of them in farming families (Kirehe District, 2022 census data).

In a dry field near the road, a boy in a green school uniform was riding one.

The bicycle was too big for him. He rode it anyway. He couldn’t sit on the saddle and still reach the pedals, so he perched on the crossbar instead, one foot pushing down, grinning. Two classmates in the same green uniform walked alongside.

It looked like a game, and it was. But out here, it’s also how a child starts learning what a bicycle is really for: water at dawn, maize to market, a sick relative to the health centre.

01Outside the classroom

A short drive away, we stopped at a school. Lessons were on. Against the brick wall outside, fifteen or so bicycles leaned on each other: old steel frames, bald tyres, plastic beads on the spokes, hardly two alike.

Parked outside a classroom, a bicycle out here does several jobs at once. It’s the school bus. It’s also how the family gets its water and moves its crops.

02Why people ride here

Flat ground makes the difference. About 29% of households in the Eastern Province own a bicycle, compared with under 4% in the Western Province (World Bicycle Relief, 2023). The latest government household survey confirms that the east leads the country, and that rural families own bicycles more often than urban families (EICV7, reported by KT Press, 2025).

• 29%of households in the Eastern Province own a bicycle
• 54%in Kayonza use a bicycle as their main way to work or market
• 40 kgthe weight of two full jerrycans on one carrier
• 66% · 18%bicycle ownership among men and women

In Kayonza, just north of Kirehe, 54% of people surveyed said a bicycle was their main way of getting to work or market. In the Western Province it was 17%. Riders said they use their bicycles for shopping (64%), work and trade (59%), fetching water (39%) and reaching a health facility (19%) (USAID Bicycles for Growth, Rwanda, 2023).

03Water first

For many families the day begins at the water point. A full 20-litre jerrycan weighs around 20 kilograms, so two on a carrier come to about 40. Walking home with that takes a long time. Riding, it’s quick, and that can decide whether a child gets to class on time.

04Getting the harvest out

Kirehe grows a lot of the country’s food. In Nasho Sector, 63 solar-powered sprinklers irrigate 1,173 hectares farmed by 2,099 smallholders, with maize yields of 5.5 to 10 tonnes per hectare (Ministry of Agriculture, MINAGRI).

Crops still have to reach a buyer, usually over dirt roads. At harvest time, 22% of people surveyed hired a bicycle taxi for themselves or their goods, and among women it was 27%. For many young men it’s a living: 29% of men surveyed said they work as bicycle-taxi riders (World Bicycle Relief, 2023).

05What a bicycle costs

A new roadster, the heavy steel kind built for loads, sells for about 120,000 Rwandan francs, roughly 116 US dollars. Around three quarters are bought second-hand, at about half that price. Sixty per cent of people without one said cost was the reason, and 91% said having one would help them earn more (World Bicycle Relief, 2023).

06Who rides

The gap between men and women is wide. Sixty-six per cent of men owned a bicycle against 18% of women, and men rode about 17.5 hours a week to women’s six (World Bicycle Relief, 2023). Women still do most of the walking, often carrying water, firewood or a child on their back. Where a household has one bicycle, the man usually rides it.

So it matters who gets to practise on bicycles like the one in that field.

07Back in the field

When we looked over again, the boy had turned the bicycle around. The front wheel wobbled on the rough ground, and he steadied it and kept going, still perched on the crossbar, his classmates close behind.

He won’t have heard of any of the surveys in this story. He doesn’t need to. Around here, everyone learns early that the distances are long, and that a bicycle makes them shorter.