Custom built bicycle by World Bicycle Relief NGO which provides Bicycles to underdeveloped, mostly rural, areas
More to be found at https://worldbicyclerelief.org
I'm too cynical to advocate for or against the NGO itself on account of not having researched it enough, It's founded by the SRAM owners (that being a bicycle parts corporation) and they have a for-profit subsidiary which just sells you that bike, but they claim some of it goes towards the actual charity. Seems an ok model.
But the idea seems, genuinely, pretty good. You give someone a rugged-ass bicycle that can be fixed via local parts instead of some dependance on anything else, they now have a pretty good bicycle and boy does that beat walking. Forgive me the obvious bias here but it feels, at least theoretically, pretty Sankara-esque, it's just instead of a tractor, it's a bicycle. Different use-case, same philosophy.
Especially that 100kg carry capacity rear rack, I mean goddamn. Most "adventure" bikes you can customer purchase in the west end at around 40 - 50kg on that front. Kind of want one now.
According to their own numbers they've given out 752.000 bicycles at about 150€ a pop.
EDIT: It also comes very close to the Apocalypse Bicycle that I posted about as the Humanitarian Bicycle idea about 2 years ago and that was from some guy just designing it for fun
What do we think?
22kg according to Engineering for Change
Some thoughts on the weight of mine would be: that is, undubitably, heavier than your standard issue bicycle in the west but compared to like a RIverside Touring 520 (~850€), that's only 6kg more. It gets you less fixin's and way less gears, but it does get you about 60kg more on the rear rack. Jury's out on maximum allowable weight both on account of that's heavily influenced by EU regulations for the latter and I can't find a source on it for the first, but considering the pricepoint: pretty good! My own commuter doesn't weigh all that much less than that.
Considering their promo material it's not really made for mountaneous areas and if you don't have to start / stop all that much because you're on rural african roads, the weight is sort of neglibible a factor.
Same, now that you say it. If I'd have to guess that's either due that being hilariously easy to do with aftermarket stuff or shit you find on the side of the road or because it'd impact the handling
Milk crate with zip ties
Bike security as provided by bike density. I wonder how well it can handle mud during the rainy season.
This kinda looks like the old English and French touring/farm bikes! Those were also 45-60 pound monsters.