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Pink Cargo Ride – Saturday 7 May

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

The unstoppable Emmy Heikamp from Dutch Cargo Bike is organising the Pink Cargo Bike Ride this Saturday, supporting the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

The ride is on Saturday 7 May at 9am starting at the playground at the end of North Road (Brighton) cycling towards Black Rock, all along Beach Road on the cycling track.

Enjoy the beautiful view of the bay, safe cycling and going from playground to playground! Why not take along your picnic and have a lovely family lunch at the clock tower playground in Black Rock.

And everyone can join in, as long as you are on a bike!

Posted in bikes for charity, Blog, Events | No Comments »

Worldbike builds cargo bikes to assist third world poor

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

FACT: Over a billion people worldwide lack adequate access to transport. Most live in rural areas cut off from markets, clinics and schools.

California-based Worldbike designs and distributes brand-new bicycles that are inexpensive, durable and built specifically to handle large loads, rough terrain and inclement weather. They’re also maintained and repaired locally.

Worldbikedoesn’t just give away the bikes for free but arranges microcredit financing for bike purchases. As Worldbike says, “The philosophy is that anyone who demonstrates a clear need for a bike and shows they plan to use it to improve their life receives one at a price they can afford and pay back over time. Giving bicycles away for free by definition undervalues the bicycle, reducing the chance that it will be properly used and maintained. It also fosters a dependency on charity that is unsustainable.”

Customers can also pre-order a Worldbike cargo bike for their own use. Proceeds from all purchases will help support bike distribution efforts in Kenya.

Posted in bikes, bikes for charity, Blog, Cool stuff | 1 Comment »

Be Cycle & Fashion

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Twelve designers customised twelve bicycles made by Peugeot to auction off in support ACT Responsible, an association for advertising professionals to federate, promote and inspire responsible communication on sustainability, equitable development and social responsibility.

About the bikes, the ACT Responsible website says “By transforming these twelve bikes into true pieces of art, artists expressed their vision of an ethical fashion, in line with the times, in order to sensitize the public to experience the daily life and sustainable development in a friendly and creative way.”

Our favourites? The bikes by Antik Batik, Kenzo Takada and Francois Duris of Peugeot.

Posted in bikes, bikes for charity, Blog, Cool stuff | 1 Comment »

Giving second-hand bikes another lease of life…to help others

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Copenhagen-based Baisikeli collects discarded bikes from Denmark to help the disadvantaged both in Africa and at home.

When the bikes are sent to Africa, they create work, education and transportation. The group has set up projects in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania, and it ships bicycles to workshops it has established there to train local people in bicycle repair.

The bikes are then sold to locals —offering a better-quality, lower-priced alternative to the bicycles commonly available—while others are converted into bicycles that can serve as local ambulances and cargo bikes.

Profits from the fixed-up bikes that get sold are invested in local projects, while a portion is put back into developing the workshops. In the future the group hopes to offer local mechanics micro-loans so they can start their own bike businesses, as well as to develop a Fair Trade Baisikeli bike that will be built in Africa and returned to Denmark for rental to tourists.

Unemployed people who have been out of a job for three years or more do the handling of the bikes in Denmark.

This video illustrates the project’s goals.

Posted in bikes for charity, Blog, Cities and countries, Copenhagen, Denmark | 2 Comments »

Stroke of Genius

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Stroke of Genius Mozilla Firefox 16072010 45532 PM.bmp 605x396 Stroke of Genius

Quite often my ideas for CycleStyle come about when I’m cycling on my bike (while keeping my attention on the traffic, of course). In fact, the whole idea for opening CycleStyle came to me while I was riding on my bike.

I’m sure everyone has these sort of light-bulb moments, whether they’re riding or not. Now the National Stroke Foundation is holding an online competition inviting Australians to share their bright ideas called Stroke of Genius.

The ideas need not be ground-breaking or have the potential to change the world, but they all recognise the creative ability of the brain. The public will vote to determine Australia’s favourite Stroke of Genius idea and every vote made requires a $1 donation to support the National Stroke Foundation. There’s also a Judges Choice award and a weekly prize for the best Stroke of Genius idea for the week.

So far, my favourite bike-related Stroke of Genius is gyms linked the powergrid.

Gym equipment such as spin bikes and running machines could be hooked up to contribute energy to the electricity grid. A feed-in tariff is a premium rate paid for electricity fed back into the electricity grid from a electricity generation source such as a rooftop solar PV system or wind turbine – or gym equipment! Gyms and their clients could share profits while contributing to energy efficiency.

Although this celebrity Stroke of Genius from radio personalities Ant and Becks made me laugh:

Australia, no longer can we mock our muffin topped cousins from the US, we are getting fatter faster than you can say ‘drive through’ and we think we’ve got a solution! It’s not WHAT we are eating that’s the problem – it’s the exercise we’re not doing. Let’s face it, a thousand years ago it didn’t matter what you ate because straight after lunch you were back hunting down dinner. And we think we’ve got the solution…. Our new Pedal Powered Vending Machines (patent pending) will force the hungrier of the species to sweat for their Snickers! Australia, ditch the drive through and cycle your way to guilt free, waist-line neutral snacks today!

Pedal vending Stroke of Genius

Both of them get my vote!

The winner of the Popular Choice award will receive a 7 night holiday for 2 staying at the Indigo Pearl resort in Phuket (drool), the Judges Choice winner wins an Apple Macbook Pro and weekly winners receive a Nintendo DSi Console and the game ‘Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training’.

Winners will be announced 1 August, so get your thinking caps on!

Posted in bike services, bikes for charity, Blog | No Comments »

Bamboo bicycles and trade-not-aid

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

We are huge supporters of social enterprise businesses and the generally philosophy of trade-not-aid.

At Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn, you can build your own bamboo bicycles in one weekend through the company’s guided workshops. Bamboo is “a renewable and performance-positive material growing right in our backyard,” according to Bamboo Bike Studio’s website, and it’s stronger, lighter and easier to work with than steel.

Even better, all proceeds directly support Bamboo Bike Studio’s collaboration with the Columbia University Earth Institute-based Bamboo Bike Project and the Millennium Cities Initiative to finance the bamboo bike factories in developing countries in Africa and South America.

In a similar vein, California-based studio Calfee Design is helping entrepreneurs in the developing world make locally sourced bamboo bicycles for domestic and international sale.

Through an initiative called Bamboosero, Calfee Design has set up two bike-building groups in Ghana to build frames for several bike designs using locally sourced bamboo. The groups ship those frames back to Calfee Design, where the US team adds wheels and hardware before sending them on to distributors. The Ghanaian builders earn about USD 150 for every frame they build, while the finished bikes are sold for about USD 950 each, according to an article on SantaCruz.com.

Posted in bikes for charity, Blog | 3 Comments »

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