Jonmol Bicycle Service – Botswana

Container 9 Lands, Opening a New Phase in our Distribution of Bikes in Africa

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Aug 052011

Filled to the brim with 480 donation bikes, container #9 has completed its 10-week journey to Gaborone, Botswana, and should clear customs in a few days. This latest resupply container represents a new direction in our model for distributing bicycles in Africa.

In the past, one single Sister Shop has been the recipient of an entire resupply container, taking the entire cost of transport and customs into their overall financial plan. Some difficulties in this approach have been the high up-front cost for the Sister Shop, and a shortage of physical space to store such a large shipment of bikes.

For our new model we’ve partnered with two avid cyclist brothers, both Kalahari Challenge competitors, who own a freight distribution company. They have agreed to store the donation bikes and send them out to our Sister Shops in ‘as-needed’ batches.

This system of distribution offers many advantages for the Sister Shops and for the Mike’s Bikes Foundation. First and foremost, the Sister Shops will be able to take delivery of inventory in smaller, more timely and more affordable batches, which eliminates the problems of lack of storage, slow resupply, and high up-front cost. Being able to forecast and plan inventories and expenditures accurately, the Sister Shops can now become more self-reliant and self-sustaining. On our end, this method of distribution enables the Foundation to focus its attention on increasing bike donations in the U.S. and gives us more time to devote to our new project in Sierra Leone. Because the new system ensures that shipping costs get reimbursed, the foundation will be able to afford to increase the number of shipments annually, while still allowing the bicycles to arrive at the Sister Shops cheaply enough for them to be affordable for buyers in the community.

In order to achieve the high-level goals of large scale distribution of bicycles in Africa and a widespread African transportation cycling culture, we need to speed up the flow of bikes to end users. The sooner we can scale distribution up, the sooner bicycle manufacturers will see opportunities to market their products and services in Africa. And with increased scale will come lower prices, enabling people in developing Africa to have a life-changing transportation option open to them.

This new model is a leap forward in long-term sustainability for the Mike’s Bikes Foundation Africa projects. To our knowledge, it is the the first distribution program of its kind.

480 Bikes: Container #9 is on its way to Gaborone, Botswana

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May 272011

The bikes filled one entire bay of our warehouse, from wall to wall.

This year, we are really ramping things up with our Projects in Africa. We have an ambitious goal of sending FOUR 40-foot containers of bikes! The first container has already arrived in Sierra Leone for our new project there, a partnership with Village Bicycle Project which distributes bikes to rural villages. The second departed San Rafael on May 25, heading to Gaborone in Botswana. There, the bikes will be warehoused and parceled out in smaller, more manageable “shipments” to two of our Sister Shops, Jonmol Bicycle Service in Botswana and MK Cycles in Zimbabwe.

Loading this second container was a bit of a challenge to say the least. We had less than four hours to load these bikes into a shipping container in the most efficient way possible, along with clothing, parts, and accessories. The bike pile was at least ten feet tall, twelve feet wide and thirty feet deep in our warehouse; there were a lot of bikes in that pile.

The weather forecast only called for a 20% chance of rain, so despite the ominously dark clouds overhead, we were hopeful we could get it loaded before the cutoff time and stay dry.

To pack as many bikes as possible into one container, each bike needs to be prepped: pedals removed, handlebars turned, and some wheels removed, depending on how it will be packed.

Tom got this LeMond ready for its trip to Africa.

We started at the top of the pile and staged as many bikes as we could fit onto the sidewalk in front of the warehouse while we waited for the empty container to arrive from the Port of Oakland.

Jimbo and Sean turning bars.

Soon after, the container arrived, along with the rain. As some of the crew started to load bikes, the rest of the crew set up tents to continue prepping bikes as they get pulled from the pile.

Staying as dry as possible.

This is the ninth container we’ve sent, and we’re getting pretty good at maximizing the number of bikes that will fit, as well as the time it takes to complete the load. Our buddy Sahr from Sierra Leone (now living in Minnesota) taught us the “pancake” method, where the bikes are laid down flat and stacked on their side. Bikes fit in much more efficiently than lining them up, wheels down, in rows. We fill in the extra space at the top with extra wheels, kids bikes, and other small accessories.

The first stack is done in the nose of the container. Bikes are staged along the sides of the can, so the loaders can select the bike that will fit best in a particular spot - like Tetris.

: Thumbs-up from Ken as the first stack takes shape. The kids bikes at bottom right get shoved in the small space at the top of the pile.

And as the container reached about half full, the skies opened up and it started to pour. In May? In California? Seriously??

Nick (the guy in the black hat) is loading one of the carbon fiber bikes that got donated this bike drive. These bikes are going to the MK Cycles racing team.

When we first started the Africa Bike Drive several years ago, we generally received not-ridden-in-ten-years beaters. Now that the project is maturing, we’re getting a greater variety of bikes donated, meaning we can serve a greater variety of riders in Africa. This round of donations, we received six higher-end carbon fiber road bikes, all destined for the cycling team formed by MK Cycles in Zimbabwe, and co-sponsored by our own local racers, Team Mike’s Bikes. These kinds of bikes are non-existent in Zimbabwe, and they’ll go a long way toward helping the Zim team reach their true potential.

After loading the last few things in to the container, we sealed it for the journey to Africa.

If anything, the torrential downpour got us working faster. We crammed more than 480 bikes plus parts, wheels, shoes, clothing and accessories into a 40 foot container, in three hours.

"Dude, I'm stoked! All these bikes are going to Africa. That's sick!" - Jimbo

This load should arrive in Gaborone in about 6 weeks, and will then be distributed to the Sister Shops, each one ending its journey in the hands of a local resident. The drive to collect bikes for Container #10 is already under way. This next one will be our second load bound for Sierra Leone. Please help us spread the word for more tax-deductible bike donations!

Mike's Bikes Africa Video

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Jul 292010

Listen to Matt and Ken talk about Mike’s Bikes’ projects in Africa, tour our sister shops and meet our partners.

The strike strikes!

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May 152010

Africa donation bike container #3 has come quite far on its journey from San Rafael, California. As far as Johannesburg, South Africa to be exact. Yet, as we’ve so often found with our philanthropy projects in Africa, unexpected complications have a habit of tossing a monkey wrench into the gears exactly when you think things are going smoothly.

This time striking South African rail and port workers have stopped the container of 474 bikes in its tracks (so to speak). It’s awaiting loading onto rail transit in Jo-burg, in order to head to Mike’s Bikes Sister Shop Jonmol Bicycle Services in Gaborone, Botswana. The strike is now in its sixth day, and we’re hoping along with Bones and the Jonmol crew that the strike reaches a resolution posthaste. As we’ve experienced first-hand, the people of Gaborone need bikes!

The story of the loading of our third container of Africa bikes - told in a minute and a half

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May 142010

How to load 474 Bikes on a 40ft. Shipping Container from Mike’s Bikes on Vimeo.

(Imagine the theme music to Benny Hill)

Back in March, we loaded 474 bikes generously donated by our customers into a shipping container bound for Gaborone, Botswana. Our third Africa bike container to date, this one is headed to Jonmol Bicycle Services, our first Africa Sister Shop that was established in 2008.

Thanks to the wild success of Jonmol, there are hundreds of people now using bicycles for transportation in Gaborone. The only drawback to getting the bikes out so quickly is that now Jonmol’s proprietor Bones is in dire need of another round of affordable bicycles to offer to his community. Once again the customers of Mike’s Bikes have stepped up, and this container was packed with more bikes than any we’ve sent to date!