Fall 2025 Newsletter

The range of bicycles Pedals for Progress receives is quite amazing. Our generous supporters donate bicycles that cover almost every era. From the classic yellow Schwinn to modern full suspension mountain bikes fresh out the box, we have accepted and shipped our fair share of interesting bikes.

We get thousands of bikes per year at our collections, so it can be hard to keep track of some of the more interesting bikes we receive. This year two bikes especially caught my eye.

The first was Bob’s old skip tooth that was dropped off our collection in Clinton NJ with the Clinton Presbyterian and North Hunterdon Rotary Club. As soon as it was unloaded, it was turning heads at the collection like a time capsule from another life.

Bob told us a little bit about the bike. It was one of his first bikes as a kid more than 50 years ago that helped him all around town. Like many bikes from our childhood, one day he stowed it away in his family barn, where it sat for years.

The age of the bike conjured up a lot of questions like “Is it good enough?” “Is it too old?” “Do you accept antique bikes”. In short: yes. For the most part this was a fine bike that simply had a lot of years behind it. It was mostly kept in a barn, so the elements did not push it beyond the repairable condition we typically ask our bikes to be in. Upon learning about our friends in Guatemala at Masa Critica and their interest in vintage bikes, I knew right away who would appreciate this special bike.

The guys down in Guatemala love these vintage bikes and were very encouraging to me when they heard we sometimes get antique bikes at our collections. The same bike culture we have of fixing and restoring old vintage bikes is alive and well in Guatemala. FIDESMA was able to sell the bike to Muhammed who was absolutely excited to see Bob’s skip chain find its way down south. This important sale goes right back to FIDESMA community outreach efforts to complete the full cycle of our program.

Now in Guatemala, Muhammed will be sure to put plenty of care and respect into this blast from the past. It is a simple reminder of how our memoirs are stored in these bicycles and lived on through others around the world. Thank you, Bob, for sending your special bike to a new home.

Another funky bike we received is this custom beach cruiser we picked up down the shore with the Monmouth social club. I always like using these examples of quirky bikes to illustrate the grand potential of P4P. While this bike isn’t practical as a commuter bike, it certainly tells a story about the person who rode it.

This is simply a whimsical bike. Every time I look at it, it just makes me smile. The long handlebars and the all-black paint job combine a sort of silliness and ruggedness that totally clashes with the beach-bike frame. I can totally picture this bike being ridden down the boardwalk. To me it just screams Jersey Shore.

I love New Jersey, so sending this bike to one of our partners was a complete joy. We always speak of the practicality of Pedals for Progress and the importance of our bikes as tools of personal empowerment. While this bike may not get you to work as quickly as a sleek road bike, it spreads simple happiness and joy to our recipients, illustrating a different side of our mission.

I rarely try to track bikes: I don’t want to burden our partners by having them look out for special bikes among the hundreds they unload from a container they are trying to return on time.

I snapped this photo of the bike simply because it made me smile. Sure enough, one day, months later, I see the same bike with a happy new owner on GoBike’s Instagram page. By sheer coincidence, I was overthrown with happiness seeing our proud new owner of this unique bike.

His smile in the photo, next to the quirky bike, gave me a newfound appreciation for our organization. He knows it won’t be the most practical, or the best bike to get from point A to B, but this man also saw the joy inside the bike and wanted to give it new life. I love imagining the heads turn in Kosovo as it rides down the streets infecting people with smiles and laughter seeing a foreign bike from a wacky country called New Jersey.

To whoever donated this wonderful bike, thank you. Thank you for illustrating the joy and happiness bicycles can bring for people in the developing world. So keep those bikes coming, in all forms, to help us keep spreading the joy of cycling.

After a long and unexpected pause, GoBike is thrilled to share that we are finally continuing our journey — with new bicycles, renewed energy, and the same mission that brought us together years ago: building a better future, one pedal stroke at a time.

Our story began in 2018 when Pedals for Progress sent a container of 450 bicycles to Kosovo — a small, landlocked country nestled in the Balkans, often overlooked on the world map, but full of big dreams and resilient people. That shipment helped us establish GoBike, a social enterprise with a vision to promote cycling, reduce our environmental footprint, and empower youth, women, and under-served communities.

Over two summers, we sold hundreds of bicycles, taught children to ride for the first time, organized community cycling events, and became a recognizable voice for sustainable urban mobility in Kosovo. We even branched out, working with sewing machines to support women’s empowerment programs in marginalized communities.

Then, as with so many good things, the pandemic brought everything to a halt.

The long pause since our first container wasn’t part of the plan, but life had other ideas. The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to shut down completely for a year and a half. Programs were suspended, projects delayed, and a second shipment remained a hopeful “one day” dream. In Kosovo, the crisis was felt deeply — with no vaccines until March 2021 and limited access to resources. But the passion behind GoBike never faded.

Now, in 2025, we’re finally back — and so are the bicycles.

This new shipment represents more than just parts and pedals. It’s a powerful reminder of what grassroots cooperation and international solidarity can achieve, even when time and distance get in the way. Our communities are once again buzzing with anticipation. New cycling schools will be launched. More women and children will be empowered. And yes — we’ll get more people out of their cars and onto two wheels.

To our partner – Pedals for Progress (P4P): thank you for not giving up on us. Thank you for remembering Kosovo, a country that is small in size but rich in spirit. And thank you for helping us get back on the road — where we belong.

We’re just getting started (again).

GoBike is a social enterprise set up and registered in 2018. GoBike’s business model of growth and prosperity is closely linked with developments and contribution into the community, and most importantly the environment. GoBike believes the bicycle is the best solution for better health, cleaner environment, poverty alleviation, and more efficient transport. The objective of GoBike is to improve access to a bicycle as a means of independence, mobility, and employment. Selling and renting bicycles, promoting cycling and cyclists, teaching people how to ride a bike, recycling of used bikes are services that we currently provide. GoBike is operational between the months of March and October. In other months the weather is colder in Kosovo so people stop cycling.

Active Programs

Community Impact

Partnering with Pedals for Progress has been crucial to getting the GoBike social enterprise going. Through our partnership we have managed to set up the enterprise, sell bicycles to beneficiaries from all walks of life, organize cycling events, and teach people how to ride a bike. To cover the initial expenses and consolidate the work of the new social enterprise, GoBike’s work was oriented towards commercially driven projects.

1. GoBike Store

In our first season, in 2018, GoBike was concentrated on sales. In our second season, in 2019, GoBike worked hard to build bike-renting services and to put bikes to good use for people and for the environment.

2. Rent Services – Cycling Events

GoBike has rented bicycles for numerous cycling events commemorating various environmental days, and to interested individuals and organizations who rented bicycles for their away days with staff or to go on biking excursions.

a. “Movement” Campaign – August 2019

The first activity was the campaign “Movement” with more than 200 cyclists. The purpose of the campaign was to raise awareness of policy-makers for environmental policy and to halt decisions that harm the quality of air, water and land. The movement called for concrete programs and investments in creating conditions for unimpeded pedestrian walking, dedicated bicycle trails, and unimpeded cycling for urban transport.

b. Mobility Week – September 2020

For Mobility Week, the staff of Public Housing Enterprise in Pristina decided to use cycling as a means of transport, to conduct field work, go on lunch break, or to commute to work. With the support of GoBike bicycles, they made our city beautiful, cleaner and more livable. From now on, the parking lot of the Public Housing Enterprise and the Municipality of Prishtina offer special and secure bicycle parkings for employees and citizens alike.

Mobility Week facebook video (38 seconds)

c. Critical Mass in Prishtina – June 2019

GoBike partnered with a local youth non-governmental organization AYA ‘Pjetër Bogdani’ to organize the Critical Mass in Prishtina. The event was an activity within the project “Bicycles, Me and the City”, funded by the European Union Office in Kosovo.

d. Cycling Schools in Prishtina

In June 2019, GoBike teamed up with AYA ‘Pjetër Bogdani’ to organize Cycling Schools, and teach people how to ride a bike. Cycling Schools were quite popular. One can never have enough of such events, as the demand was high, particularly amongst children.

Cycling Schools took place in downtown Pristina and were free of charge. Whilst our teams helped every interested person balance and pedal, we gave particular attention to little girls, for whom parents often neglect this important milestone in their lives: learning how to ride a bicycle, be free, and grow their independence. GoBike can only hope that through these activities we can contribute in growing the cycling community of Pristina; help young girls and boys grow independent; provide a cycling experience to the adults who have never experienced cycling before; and reduce carbon emissions air by promoting cycling as a more sustainable way of transport.

Qualitative Assessment, Impact on Beneficiaries

For the time being, the monitoring, evaluations and learning aspect of our operations are done by my family. We are using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to assess the reach and impact of our activities so far: e.g., the number of bicycles sold (343), rented bicycle services (over 200), the income generated in a given season, and comparison with prior season(s) of operation (so far only two seasons).

Until now, we have kept in touch with clients who purchased bicycles at GoBike to learn how have the bicycles added value into their life or business, and have publicized their stories in our social media pages and also submitted human stories to P4P for the newsletters. For new projects in the future, we will use feedback forms and other tools to see how our projects are having a wider societal impact. We also keep track of the number of boys, girls, women and men who have benefited from Cycling Schools (+100 kids), or participated in Critical Mass (+50), and other cycling events we have organized – as we try to see whether access to bicycles is as easy for girls and women as it is for boys and men. Unfortunately in Kosovo there are not many female cyclists. The demand for women’s bikes is over 75% less than for men’s bikes. We notice the same trend in parents, who mostly buy bicycles for their sons but not for their daughters. This is why in our cycling schools we gave particular attention to little girls.

To evaluate the image and reach of GoBike we monitor and engage with followers’ comments, reviews and likes in GoBike’s social media.

GoBike Plans for Container 2

As a recently established enterprise, with the first contingent of bicycles, GoBike’s work was oriented towards commercially driven projects. With the second container of bikes, GoBike will continue the activities we have carried on until now, revamping some of the projects, and initiating new ones. A key goal is to generate sufficient income from selling bicycles to enable us to keep our business as a social enterprise. We hope to be able to continue promoting cyclists and cycling, especially amongst women and girls and economically disadvantaged groups. And we hope to further develop our renting services.

Sewing Machines

Sewing Machines are made available for online sale via the facebook page Sewing Machines from America (in Albanian). Just recently, GoBike has sold two machines.

GoBike is still seeking to partner with organizations that would organize sewing classes for training of people from marginalized groups.

GoBike
Fall 2019 Newsletter

Getting there …

Since the beginning of the partnership with Pedals for Progress in early 2018, GoBike LLC from Kosovo has had a second successful summer of bike sales. The summer season opened in March 2019, and closed for the autumn/winter in October 2019 due to temperature drops. GoBike, as a young start-up, continues to work on building its image and reputation as the bike place in Kosovo’s capital, Prishtina.

As a country of around 2 million inhabitants, Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe. More than 65% of the population are younger than 30 years old, whilst internet penetration rate is 88.8%. Taking advantage of this fact, GoBike’s marketing strategy was entirely reliant on social media. The benefit of this approach is also that social media is free, a key factor for GoBike at its early stage of existence. GoBike now numbers 1200 followers on Facebook, and 3800 on Instagram, two platforms where most customers hear about GoBike.

Whilst in the first season in 2018 GoBike was concentrated on sales, this season, in 2019, GoBike worked hard to build bike-renting services, and put bikes to good use to people and to the environment.

Cycling Schools

As Prishtina is often one of world’s most polluted cities — due to dense traffic and 100% reliance on coal-produced electricity — encouraging people to cycle is vital for the environment. To this end, since June 2019, GoBike teamed up with a local youth non-governmental organization AYA ‘Pjetër Bogdani’ to organize Cycling Schools and teach people how to ride a bike. Cycling Schools were quite popular. One can never have enough of such events, as the demand was high, particularly amongst children.

Cycling Schools operated in downtown Pristina and were free of charge. Whilst our teams helped every interested person balance and pedal, we gave particular attention to little girls, for whom parents often neglect this important milestone in their lives — learning to ride a bicycle, be free, and grow their independence. GoBike can only hope that through these activities we can contribute to growing the cycling community of Pristina; help young girls and boys grow independent; provide a cycling experience to the adults who have never experienced cycling before; and reduce carbon emissions by promoting cycling as a more sustainable way of transport.

Cycling Champion

Anel is a customer GoBike will never forget. Indeed, he will never forget GoBike either, as GoBike is now firmly part of his life’s story.

Anel is 4 years old. When he walked into the GoBike shop with his father in late March 2019 to purchase a bike, he had never cycled without the aid of side wheels. However, with the grit and determination of a child, he chose a bike he liked that had no side wheels. He knew what he was doing. He hopped on it, started pedaling and wobbling, but feeling confident by the presence and help of his father. He did a few rounds with assistance, asked to be released, carried on pedaling, and did not stop cycling the whole summer. His happy face is the best reward for GoBike.

By Kushtrim Gojani, GoBike

Dear David,

Hope you are well.

Many many apologies for this late reply. The reason I am writing this late is due to a ton of work dealing with bicycles to bring them to good use. The container honestly caught me a little off guard. I knew it would be a container with 450 bicycles but I guess I did not prepare for the work required to assemble them. I am aware of the challenge and sacrifice it took P4P to establish this project in Kosovo, and I am very thankful. This very fact gave me extra pressure, because I don’t want to let you down and I want to make the GoBike & P4P partnership successful.

I managed to clear the container on 11 July 2018 after only 2 nights at customs. This was my first import experience with Kosovo customs, and we had a few problems that I hope we can handle better in the future.

We are a little cash poor, so I could not hire extra mechanics for the bicycles. I have been working intensively myself with the support of friends and family to prepare the bicycles (many of us were inexperienced) and this kept me away from all office work. Apologies once again for responding late.

Now some good news 😃

From the moment we unloaded the container we were very pleased with the reaction of the people here. They appreciate the quality of the bicycles and are eager to buy them. They are quite surprised to see that we brought American bicycles to Kosovo, and they are happy to find bikes that vary from quite inexpensive to professional quality, so there is something for everyone! So far, we see quite a lot of interest in children’s bikes.

The location of the GoBike warehouse is very strategic. It is in the main road between the capital Prishtina and a famous city in north Kosovo called Mitrovica, so people who travel this road and families who live nearby are already stopping by our shop.

We managed to sell 25 bicycles so far, but we are having some overhead. We gave top priority to security so we installed cameras and hired a guard to look after the bicycles during the night.

I will get back to you again once we manage to prepare all the bicycles (another 250 to go) and I will keep you informed about GoBike news and events.

Here is our facebook page.

Thank you ever so much.

All the best,
Kushtrim

GoBike
Spring 2018

GoBike LLC is located in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, Europe’s youngest country. Kosovo is a landlocked country bordering Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia. Kosovo owes its independence largely to U.S., U.K. and other European partners who intervened in 1999 to stop ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanian majority by the policies of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of ex-Yugoslavia. NATO troops are still present in Kosovo, and the U.S. Army has a base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, which can hold up to 7000 soldiers.

The partnership between Kosovo and the U.S. is strategic. Kosovars are extremely grateful towards the U.S. for its continued support, and Kosovar Albanians (more than 90% of Kosovo’s population) tend to be very friendly towards the U.S. This gratitude is visible across Kosovo’s cities, but most notably in Pristina, where one can walk down Bill Clinton Boulevard, turn onto George Bush Street, and end up in Madeleine Albright Hall.

Like all post-war countries, Kosovo faces many political, economic, environmental and social challenges. Although it has the youngest population in Europe (more than 60% are below 25 years old), the unemployment rate remains at 30%, and at around 60% for youth and women. Kosovo is entirely reliant on energy produced from lignite, which is extremely polluting and a perennial health hazard. Post-war development and the corruption associated with it have taken a negative toll on the environment; quality of air, water and soil; increased congestion in cities; and deforestation in rural areas. Kosovo’s capital is often ranked one of the most polluted cities on earth.

In response to these problems, I established GoBike LLC in November 2017 with the mission to promote cycling and bicycle use in Kosovo, reduce transport-related carbon footprint, and improve Kosovo cyclists’ well-being. The vision of GoBike is a Kosovo society with an improved quality of life and environment. Partnering with Pedals for Progress has been crucial to getting this start-up business going.

GoBike aims to stimulate bicycle use, increase the number of cyclists in the city and thus reduce pollution from traffic, and make cycling in Kosovo safer and enjoyable for all. We seek to identify, support, and promote all those who use bicycles as a main mode of transportation, and to lobby for improvements of urban infrastructure for cycling.

GoBike strives to be the number one bicycle provider in Kosovo, with specialized bike shops for rentals, sales, and maintenance. Our business will focus on the organization and promotion of cycling events (excursions, festivals, cycling clubs, etc.) and education of citizens on the importance of bicycle use. This, indirectly, will affect the greater demand for bicycle rental and sale services. In the future, GoBike plans to establish the very first public bicycle rental system, initially in the capital, with the hope of expanding to other cities.

GoBike’s chosen area of focus is not only important in and of itself, but it also has multiple benefits to the environment, contributes to health, and supports Kosovo’s economy and tourism. Kosovars brand themselves as “The Young Europeans”. Hopefully, Pristina and other Kosovo cities will have the cycling infrastructure and attitude towards bikes as other European cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and London.

Pedals for Progress, thank you ever so much for your contribution and support. I look forward to reporting on the contribution our joint endeavor is making to address Kosovo’s environmental and economic challenges.

Kosovo
Population: 1,920,079 (2017 est.)
Area: 10,908 sq km (slightly larger than Delaware)
GDP per capita: $12,003 (2017 est.)