Our task: Sell 500 adult Raleigh bikes between April 1st and June 15th. If we meet this goal Raleigh will donate $10,000 to our Sister Shop programs in Africa. And with shop number four now up and running in Lesotho, our partners in Africa can certainly use the support. If you’re in the market for a bike, it’s the perfect time to check out a Raleigh. Help them help us, and don’t forget we’re always in need of your tax-deductible donation bikes too!
PODS containers have landed at several Mike’s Bikes locations, where they’ll stay until the end of April to give us extra capacity to kick our Africa Bike Drive into high gear! We know the garage is a big part of your spring cleaning plans, so now is the perfect time to dig out that old dusty bike and send it somewhere where it will literally change a life. Bike donations are tax-deductible too. Huge thanks go out to PODS for providing this invaluable storage. Now we need your help to fill the PODS and get more bikes to our Sister Shops in Africa!
Find PODS containers at these Mike’s Bikes locations:
San Rafael
Sausalito
Berkeley
Palo Alto
Sacramento
Los Gatos
It was an exciting morning for us at our warehouse here in San Rafael. Tucked behind new bikes and parts inventory were 343 donated bicycles that were ready to be loaded into our next container headed for Bicycle Recycle in Botswana.
These donated bikes used to have a life with somebody in the Bay Area. Santa could have delivered the tiny pink bike to a slumbering toddler. The older steel road bike may have been somebody’s first race machine back in the 1990s. The haggered mountain bike with spring suspension still has dirt from its last rugged adventure. They all had their place with somebody else and served their time for those experiences; they were tools for learning and exploring.
Now it’s time for new homes, new rides, and new soil. These bikes will be forgotten no more, but rather restored and reintroduced into the world, reigns held tightly in eager riders’ hands. It’s time for new adventure and exploration in Africa’s arms.
We’ve loaded containers many times before and it always restores faith in humanity to see everybody work together for the same goal; to get more people on bikes, happy and carefree, all over the world. We couldn’t do it without the countless donations and give thanks to all those that have contributed. There will be plenty more containers to fill in the future, so if you know a bike that’s been forgotten in a garage or tucked in a storage unit without much thought, roll it out to one of our locations for a new life in sunny Africa.
Thanks to the generosity of our customers, and Specialized Bicycles (who’ve provided a fleet of brand-new light cargo bikes), we now have enough donation bicycles to fill container #14 for our Africa Sister Shops. Demand on the continent couldn’t be higher, as people from Botswana, to Namibia, to Zimbabwe, and now Lesotho, are snapping up affordable bikes to gain mobility in their lives. All are welcome to help load the container, or to just say hi and take a photo or two. Join us Thursday morning at 9am on 4/5/2012 at 24 Tiburon St. in San Rafael.
Tumi, our man in Lesotho with a grand vision and overwhelming determination, has brought a lot of happiness to his community through his hard work and the generosity of our bike donors here in the ‘States. Remember what that dry spot of land used to look like? Let’s dig around and find that photo…
There we go. Tiny spot of land with a tree, a shipping container, and a big big vision.
We’ve been receiving updates on how Tumi’s Bicycle Shop (which opened in February) has been doing. Below are the latest batch of photos showing the residents of Lesotho riding around town. These bikes are enabling them to get to school, to health care, and to employment. Keep up the good work, Tumi! You’re kicking ass!
Tumi and his son
Everybody ready? Off to school we go!
Commuting
Road riding, too!
Tricks are for kids. Eat your heart out, Macaframa and MASH. This little guy's gonna show you up one day.
