Tuesday was no ordinary practice for young cyclists of the Big Rock Cycling School in Parys. Instead, the excitement was almost touchable as the 12-metre container packed with between 350 and 500 pre-loved bicycles and cycling equipment, donated by the Carroll Creek Rotary Club in Maryland, USA, arrived in Parys. Soon these bicycles will find new lives, new roads and, most importantly, new riders in our community.

The story started with a video posted by Parys Rotary president Sandra Uys in 2025, showing the amazing work done at Big Rock – a grassroots cycling project giving aspiring young cyclists between the ages of 5 and 18 from Parys, Tumahole, Schonkenville and surrounding communities from all walks of life, an opportunity to learn and participate in cycling as a sport. Here, these schoolchildren are taught much more than simply how to ride a bicycle.

Classes focus on basic riding skills, fitness, confidence and the culture of cycling.

The school has access to its own mountain-bike skills track, maintained and sponsored by the Anatomic Sportswear Factory in Parys. Anatomic is also the mothership of the Big Rock project, coordinating volunteers and helping to fund the maintenance of the school’s bicycles.

Parys MultiSport Club serves as Big Rock’s officially affiliated Free State cycling club and provides the project with an important administrative and sporting backbone.

Students also enjoy free access to Koedoeslaagte Trail Park, 12 km outside Parys.
Through the club and school, youngsters who develop a passion and talent for the sport are given opportunities to progress into competitive cycling.

Big Rock proudly boasts a number of cycling titles among its young riders. With the cycling season in full swing, and new cyclists continuing to show up in large numbers to join the school and get in on the action, this contribution by Rotary is sure to make a positive impact when the long line of cyclists shows up for practice on a Tuesday afternoon – a familiar sight at the Anatomic factory in Parys’ industrial area.
No cycling without bicycles.

Many Big Rock children are proud bicycle owners. Many others simply cannot afford a bicycle of their own.The school began with a small collection of bicycles donated by private individuals. In 2022, the project received another 10 bicycles and helmets through a Free State Cycling Lottery-funded initiative. Those bicycles helped ignite what Big Roch has become today.

Then, in 2025, the project caught the attention of the Rotary Club of Parys. With the help of a video produced by Ian Berry, the Big Rock story reached a wider Rotary audience .

The Rotary Club of Empangeni responded. The club is passionately involved in the distribution of donated bicycles in South Africa and connected Big Rock to an extraordinary international chain of generosity.
Behind the Empangeni Rotary bicycle programme stands the Rotary Club of Carroll Creek in Maryland, USA, where, with the involvement of Jonathan Warner and Steve Bamonti, bicycles are collected, packed and sent across the world to communities where they can make a difference.

In November last year, Rotary Empangeni helped Big Rock receive 90 bicycles.
That contribution carried the project to a new level.

Receiving the donation this week creates even more possibilities, says Big Rock’s Attie Koekemoer.

Four ways to put bicycles to work

The Big Rock project plans to put the bicycles to use across four main areas.

• Transport: Many of the bicycles are practical commuter bikes. Promoting the bicycle as affordable, healthy and practical transport will be an important part of the project.

• Tourism and recreation: Cruiser-style bicycles are perfectly suited to recreational riding and have exciting potential within Parys’s tourism environment.

• Sport and fitness: Mountain bikes and drop-handle road bicycles can introduce more people to cycling for exercise, adventure and organised sport.

• Developing champions: Big Rock also intends to build and maintain a smaller fleet of higher-end sporting bicycles, giving dedicated young riders the opportunity to train and compete on equipment that might otherwise be beyond their reach.

The Cycling School extended a word of thanks to Sandra Uys from Rotary Parys, who saw the potential, Andrew Killick and Fulvio Pace from Rotary Empangeni, and to everyone in South Africa and the United States who helped turn a collection of used bicycles into an extraordinary opportunity for our community.

Big Rocks brave riders

The cycling school’s name has a double meaning.
It refers to the enormous meteorite that struck the Earth billions of years ago and shaped the Vredefort Dome and the mountains surrounding Parys. But it also refers to the cycling school’s children.

“On a bicycle, every rider eventually meets a big rock — something difficult, intimidating, or seemingly impossible standing in the trail ahead.

“Our children learn to tackle those big rocks with equally big courage,” says Attie.

“That is what Big Rock is ultimately about: not only teaching children to ride bicycles, but helping them discover where a bicycle can take them. Whatever we do at Big Rock – we go big, and we rock.

Bicycles for Africa

According to Rotary Empangeni’s Andrew Killick, roughly 35 containers with over 18 000 bicycles have been distributed since the start of the project in 2008 – sending bicycles from Cape Town to Mpumalanga, Parys, and the Mozambique border.

The donated bicycles came from Canada, Carroll Creek, Florida, and Australia, blessing people with the noblest invention of mankind, in the words of Armenian-American writer William Saroyan.