Franciscana 2024: Jajce – Kraljeva Sutjeska

The association for the promotion of cycling "Hercegovina bicycling" was created as a result of the need to promote cycling in Herzegovina in a comprehensive way, with the desire to gather around it all relevant cycling employees and cycling clubs in order to jointly try to brand Herzegovina as a region desirable for cycling, and which would ultimately contribute to the popularization and massification of cycling, but also to the creation of preconditions for the development of cycle tourism, which in recent years in Europe, but also in the world, is increasingly expanding and becoming an important tourist branch.

Association HerzegovinaBike was founded on February 8, 2013. and gathers members of cycling clubs from Herzegovina. Since its foundation, the association, together with the ministries of resources (Tourism, Culture and Sports), has been actively promoting cycling as cycling tourism first, and then as sport, recreation and a way of life. So far, we have presented a number of projects of active cycling as a sport and recreation, of which we would like to highlight: Bicycle caravans of friendship "Mostar - Vukovar" which gathered over 1,000 cyclists from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Croatia, International bicycle road races "Hercegovina Classic", International multi-day the "Blidinje BIKE Festival" event, which gathers thousands of cyclists and tourists from several countries through a three-day organization, and she was also the holder of the project to mark the European Car-Free Day and organized several cycling events in urban areas. Association "Hercegovina Bicikl" gathers cycling clubs from the areas of Mostar, Široki Brijeg, Posušje, Grud, Drinovac, Ljubuški, Čapljina, Neum, Trebinje, Ravno, Stolac, Jablanica and Rama.

The association for the promotion of cycling "Hercegovina bicycling" together with REDAH participates in several projects related to the sports and tourism promotion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and independently implements the project "By bike through Herzegovina", which passed the competition of the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Firmaprojekt fund of the established from USAID and SIDA organizations. The association is also an active partner in the revitalization project of the Austro-Hungarian narrow-gauge railway, popularly called Ćiro, a project that has received worldwide positive attention and has been covered by many foreign media, and which connected Mostar and Dubrovnik via a bicycle route. Also, together with the West Herzegovina County Office for EU Integration, we implement and actively participate in the implementation of the "CYCLING RURAL" project, which aims to promote rural tourism through bicycle paths and cycle tourism offers. Furthermore, for several years now, the association, in cooperation with the Bicycle Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina and tourist associations, has been implementing a training project for cycle tourism guides, and together with the Regional Development Agency of Herzegovina "REDAH" has been implementing the "Bike Friendly" project in which we educate motels, restaurants and inns about cycle tourism. cyclists as guests and we assign them BikeFriendly tags.