Editor’s Note: Last fall, we rolled out Purple Pedals (aka the Ybike), a project that mashed up purple bicycles with GPS devices, cameras, solar panels, and Flickr to create a social media experiment. We sent 14 of these bikes to influential bloggers/photographers/cyclists around the world. Here’s the story of how our Copenhagen bike was received on a recent visit to Africa:

My Experience on the Ybike
When I hit the dusty roads of Tanzania, “karibu” and “wow” were some of the first things I heard. “Karibu” is Swahili for “welcome” and shows everyone’s openness and goodwill at the sight of me with my purple Yahoo! bike. I could tell by the expressions on people’s faces that a “muzungo” (“white man”) on a purple cruiser was not an everyday sight — most white people arrive in four-wheel drives.

There are plenty of bicycles in Tanzania. The people who ride them — the majority of Tanzanians — cannot afford cars or motorcycles. The fancy Yahoo! bicycle with solar panels, camera and the shiny purple colour showed people that the bicycle is not just as a means of transportation for the poor.

I’m cofounder of Baisikeli (Swahili for “bicycle”), a project that makes high-quality bicycles accessible to the poorest people of Africa. These bikes have many purposes, including helping farmers increase their income by more than 100%, just by enabling them to move twice the amount of crops in half the time. We also build bicycle ambulances, which are donated to rural health care centres to enable them to provide vital access to health care in neighbour villages.

My Running Guides
The Baisikeli workshop is based in Arusha, 80 kilometres from Mt Kilimanjaro. When I first arrived from Denmark, I went out for a bike ride to get a feel for the vibes of the city. Within the first few minutes, two young boys were running next to the bike shouting “around – around!,” explaining that they were going to give me a guided tour of the neighbourhood. To be honest, I’ve had better guided tours. But taking into consideration that “around” was their only English word, the energy they put into the tour was amazing.

The Attention
A Yahoo! bike ride in Tanzania was a new experience every time. Obviously, you get a lot of attention when riding a fancy purple bicycle in Tanzania. People would often ride up alongside me and start asking questions in Swahili and show enthusiasm for both the bicycle and me. Children on the side of the road would call for siblings, who would come running out of houses, screaming euphorically at seeing the muzungo on the purple bicycle. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was great every time — seeing the small children amused by me passing by.

A boy laughing at muzungo passing by on a purple bicycle:

Uses for Bikes in Africa
Bicycles are important to Tanzanian infrastructure. They are vital in the mobility of both the population and goods. People are employed with transporting huge amounts of things like charcoal, milk or bread, traveling dozens of kilometres to the city to sell them.

Sometimes people turn their bicycles into mobile shops, so they can ride around and sell their goods. Here’s a bicycle sneaker shop:

The idea of using bicycles for varied means of transport is the foundation of Baisikeli. We design bikes based on what we observe about how they are used in society. If people can make a living transporting 100kg tomatoes, they can make an even better living transporting 200kg. As a result, our mantra is: “Bikes for a better life.”

Here are some more examples of people riding bicycles with a heavy load: a shop, two baskets balance the weight, selling ice cream, and goatskins.

Bikes for Better Health
Bicycles also mean the difference between life and death for inhabitants of rural villages — everyone from pregnant mothers to children with malaria. Twenty-five percent of children never reach the age of five. Bikes can change that. I visited a village called Intavira, 60km from the nearest city and without a proper road leading to it, to donate a bicycle ambulance. This village of 2,000 inhabitants was the largest of 20 in the area and the only source of proper health care. Sick relatives are often pulled in a wagon by cow. Now with the Baisikeli ambulance, the surrounding villages will have easier access to the clinic –- and we hope this will reduce the rate of deaths in the area.

Here’s a slideshow from my visit.

Henrik Smedegaard Mortensen
Co-Founder
Baisikli – Bikes for a better life