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?

  • culpritus [any]
    ·
    11 months ago

    It's pretty well thought out for the purpose. That rear rack makes it pretty utilitarian which is really cool. I guess that's some sort of drum brake on the front wheel.

    You could carry a passenger on it if they aren't too big/heavy. Instant mini-technical, just add an AK and some foot pegs.