Some of you may recall the very successful Biketober festivals of cycling, set up here originally back in October 2017 and continued annually for several years after that. The last one was back in 2023, after which there was a bit of a hiatus due to the ongoing workload of making these volunteer efforts happen. However, Biketober is now back again for 2026 and raring to go in less than a week now!
Many of you will be familiar with the drill for these festivals. Basically, there will be a wide variety of different events throughout the month covering a range of different bike-related activities, including:
- Regular weekly Friday Night Bike Rides – different themes each week starting out from beside the Bridge of Remembrance
- A weekly series of speakers on Thursday evenings presenting on some interesting biking topics (including one from me about my European travels and observations…)
- Weekly Sunday recreational rides around town, duly followed by some cafe socialising afterwards
- One-day Checkpoint Challenges (where you ride around, finding and logging various locations around the city) to start and end the month
- RAD Bikes and Aranui Bike Fixup public bike sessions for fixing your bike or finding a pre-loved one
There are also some special one-off events planned for the month as well, including:
- On Sat 10th Oct, the team at KiwiHPV will be at Hagley Park Netball Courts with some opportunities to try out a range of recumbent bikes and velomobiles.
- The ever-popular DIY bike trailer workshop will be happening on Sat Oct 17th – bring your bike, some tools, and build your own wooden framed bike trailer fitted with an aluminium towbar and hitch.
- Also on Sat 17th Oct will be a Rainbow Rave Ride heading out from Richmond through the Avon River Red Zone corridor and back again – bring some dazzling colours and vibe to some groovy beats…
- On Sun 18th Oct, people young and old can gather at Heathcote Domain playground for a cargo bike picnic – don’t worry if you don’t have a cargo bike; you can have a look and maybe a ride on other people’s!
The month will end with a special session on the afternoon of Sat 31st Oct from Tom Flood, a visiting Canadian design and communications professional from Rovélo Creative (fresh from speaking to a road safety conference in Sydney) for a presentation and panel discussion on how creativity can shift the narrative on road safety.
The team behind the scenes are steadily putting together the full calendar of events – most are already up, but keep an eye out for other new activities. It’s a pity that I will be over in Australia for the last week, so I will miss out on a few of the activities…
What will you be taking part in this Biketober?