The Rwanda Epic is no ordinary stage race. Rwanda’s “Land of a Thousand Hills” doesn’t hand out easy kilometres. The climbs are steep, the landscape wild, the air filled with red dust and intensity. It’s the kind of race that sorts out why you’re really there.

Daniel knows what the days on the bike will demand from him. But he also knows that this trip has very little to do with his personal performance, or splits, or podiums. The race is just one part of the story — the door that opens to what comes next.

For the past years, Daniel has been deeply involved with Shift Up for Rwanda, a non-profit built around a simple but powerful idea: using bikes to create real opportunities for young Rwandans — not only in sport, but in life.

The roots of the project trace back to Florent Nsengumuremyi, who lost most of his family in the 1994 genocide. A bicycle became his way forward. That story never left Daniel, and today he and the team work to make sure other kids have the same chance.

Education, training, and sport all blend together here. Young riders get access to bikes and equipment they could never afford. But they also get a path: school, vocational training, a future.

One of the clearest examples is Banzi Bukhari. A few years ago, he barely attended school. Today he’s training to become a bike mechanic, races at the top of the local MTB scene, and is quickly becoming the strongest rider in the region. He’s the kind of talent you can imagine racing in Europe in a couple of years — if the support system continues to grow around him.

So Daniel isn’t just travelling with suitcases. He’s travelling with boxes full of parts, clothing, wheelsets — all packed by hand, with the knowledge that each item can make the difference between a bike that rides and a bike that sits. He’ll hand them over directly to the kids and young adults at the academy. Some of them show up with worn-through tyres and frames held together by hope and wire. A functioning wheelset isn’t a small gesture — it’s a ticket to training, to racing, to belonging.

Because none of this works alone. Every year, riders, brands, mechanics and friends of the sport step in to help — with a spare derailleur, with an old frame that deserved a second life, with fifty euros that go further in Rwanda than we can imagine.

If you have gear tucked away in boxes, equipment you’ve moved on from, wheels that still spin true — they can do real work there. And if you’re in a place to donate financially, Shift Up explains everything clearly on their website, in German and English. Every contribution stitches another piece of this project together.

But what stays behind in Rwanda is much bigger: opportunity. A chance for kids to ride. A chance for young adults to learn a trade. A chance for the sport to grow on its own soil.