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.

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

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.

"The Beast" has a trailer that's filled to the brim with bicycles for the shop. Apparently, this one batch wasn't enough to satiate the residents of Lesotho.

Bikes for sale along the road leading to Tumi's shop.

Lots of young customers ready to ride!

A customer trying on a new Specialized jersey.

Paul is advising a customer here. Looks like a good day for a bike ride.

Tumi is doing a great job and we are proud of him and what he’s been able to do in such a short time and with limited resources. We are sure that his shop will be a huge success and can’t wait to see what happens next!

In the beginning there was, well, a plot of dirt with a box on it. That white container you see there is the first part of the shop.

The white container gets new paint!

The other half of the shop is getting picked up here. It will be placed beside the purple container...

...and gets new paint, too!

The foundation is put into place at the front of the shop.

Ah yes. A place to sit down and relax. Nice kit!

An awning gets installed to provide some relief from the booming sun.

Installing fixtures and storage inside the unit.

Storage inside the new shop.

Working on the shelves and clothing fixtures.

With donation bikes from our customers in Northern California, the shop is now open for business! Here, Tumi is fixing a flat for one of his new customers.

Tumi is very involved in the cycling community, both with recreational and competitive riders.In this photo, he is being awarded for completing UCI training.

The new hand-painted sign!

We’re proud to have another Sister Shop open and we feel lucky to have a dedicated guy like Tumi running the show.  With his involvement, we’re confident that more people in Lesotho will have a local shop they can count on for reliable and trustworthy service, making the bicycle a truly viable mode of transportation there.

(For a complete set of photos, visit our Flickr page.)

Rob Carle of Bicycle Recycle sent us a photo of one of the first customers at Jerry’s Bikes in Gaborone, Botswana. We think he experienced this exact phenomenon.

This old man was convinced that he needed a gold racing bike, despite our best efforts to convince him that a relaxed cruiser was the way to go. He liked the bike and wasn’t leaving without it.

As I said, my trip back to Bulawayo with the bikes was an epic adventure of sorts. I had initially hoped to leave Gabz early on Friday morning, but when I showed up to collect the truck and trailer we discovered that The Beast didn’t have a “blue book” (vehicle registration) and that it was still registered to its former owner who had long left Botswana.  At this point, we were really screwed! Then enter Jane; one of Rob’s finest in my humble opinion.. we quickly proceeded to misrepresent to the police and transport department (in the nicest and closest-to-legal way we could) that we had been sent at just that moment by the original owner to get a new blue book for her.  And I guess our combined awesomeness was proof enough that we weren’t a pair of crims up to something dodgy and they signed our affidavits etc. and sent us on our merry way; blue book in hand!!  Of course, it took most of the morning and a bit of the afternoon, but it was beter than the two alternatives (i.e. no trip or prison for presenting false info to the police).  The next step was easy; getting the vehicle cleared by the police for international travel. This took us about two hours and at promptly 15:30 we were ready to roll.

The driver (Washington) and I hooked the trailer to our trusty vehicle and proceeded to the filling station where we gave The Beast 76 litres of yummy diesel. This, as you would know, isn’t a problem if the car you are filling up has an actual diesel engine. The Beast, however, runs a 24 valve, 6 cyclinder petrol engine (clear proof that a tough manly exterior can be fueled by sweet fruity wines and ciders!!).  We only had to drive two hundred meters before the error of our ways was clearly apparent. The Beast began to lurch violently and belch out thick plumes of white smoke. I then rushed back to the filling station to ask for a spanner and extra containers so we could drain all the fuel and called Terry and Rob and Steve and Boz to let them know what had just happened. To my surprise, no one reacted as though something cataclysmic had happened. But  I was gutted. I had just wasted $100.00 of fuel , a few more dollars on the guys from the filling station who helped us out, nearly killed the car that Rob had freely lent to us, wasted Terry’s time and money on a mechanic (Terry came over with a mechanic to help us out and called a mechanic to make sure the car was fine) and wasted our own time all in one stroke. I spent much of the night mourning and obsessing over my careless mistake and mourning what it had cost.

Fortunately, the plug on all Toyotas is easy to find but unfortunately, if you’re not a regular hand, it takes a bit of time to unscrew and also involves a fuel shower. Needless to say, three hours were spent correcting this unfortunate misadventure and at around 20:00 I had washed all the diesel away and we were once again on our way towards Zimbabwe.

We drove steadily (read as very very slowly) because we knew we only needed to get to Francistown at 8 the next morning and we even stopped at 3am to catch some zzz’s. But at around five in the morning we had our first encounter with the police. We were stopped and promptly fined for driving a trailer without a registration disc. At the time, we must have been very very sleepy because we, too, looked for the disc but could not find it.  But it was in fact hidden under the tarp we’d put over the trailer. And so we paid a BWP100.00 fine and pressed on towards the border. We passed through the Francistown without incident even though we had to stop briefly to refuel and rest. Unfortunately, we left without having breakfast because we overestimated the efficiency of our customs officials. We arrived at the border and around 8:30 and whisked through the Botswana side. At the Zim side, however, we were immediately presented with three challenges.

1. They refused to clear the car for entry because I was a Zim resident and the car was Botswana registered.  This is despite the fact that we had stamped and certified letters giving me “authority and permission to use the vehicle anywhere in Botswana, Zimbabwe, south Africa and Namibia.”

2. An internet-based Zimra entity known as “The System” was working in sporadic stops and starts and so the clearing agent could not register our documentation. This is especially funny because the Facebook on all the computers at the border seemed to be working just fine

3. The staff at the border (clearing agents especially) aren’t the brightest of stars.

We immediately set upon solving the only problems we could. We asked Terry to send us new versions of the letters of authority for the vehicle and proceeded to print and sign them on his behalf. And we also encouraged our clearing agent and Zimra staff to hurry up with a combination of smiles, threats, and long moments of time to let them work on our stuff.  It may seem as though these are solutions which are easy to implement, but the fruits of our labour only materialized at 21:30 hours, when at last we got our paperwork and left the border for Zimbabwe. We were both totally famished at this stage, but mercifully we made it to Bulawayo a little after midnight (we were delayed at each of the three roadblocks by police hoping that the bikes had either been stolen or smuggled into the country).

Having learnt from our first batch of bikes, I thought that I’d spend Monday doing inventory and catching up on MK Cycles news. I also thought I’d send my documents ahead so all the unnecessary delays could take place BEFORE we got there.

And so we set off for Francistown  on Tuesday morning to pick up our second batch of bikes and were twice stopped and fined for faulty brake lights on the trailer.  We also stopped as we passed through the border to make sure our clearing agents received our paperwork. “I’ve been working on it,” the (silly) man said. When we got to F-town, there was driving rain and somehow one of the wipers on the car had packed up.  And also, our contact had taken a road trip somewhere and it would be at least an hour and a half before he got back.  So we passed away the time by having a healthy lunch and praying the rain away. As is the custom in Africa, our guy showed up two hours later and we spent a further 45 minutes packing the bikes.  We arrived at the Bots border at around 18:00 and spent thirty minutes sorting ourselves out there and then proceeded to the Zim side where disappointment galore lay in wait.  Not only had our clearing agent done very little, but he’d also gone home for the night and refused to come back and get our papers done. In a fit of rage, I promptly found another clearing agent who promised that he would work on our stuff quickly and charged us to be at the border at 08:00 the next morning.  I left him my papers and the trailer at the border.

The next morning, we were at the border looking for our shiny new clearing agent.  We found him lounging around in his office. He then told us how he hadn’t worked on our documents because he was afraid of our old clearing agent.  After I’d told him very roundly that if he said he’d do it and that I’d be unpleasant to both of them if he didn’t get himself into gear, he went to contend with our old foe; The System.  He managed to tell The System that MK Cycles was at the border but he didn’t tell it that we were income tax registered (this error cost us $65.00 and cost him $50.00).  At the sheer weight of his announcement, the system collapsed and the internet was rendered good for nothing other than Facebook.  It returned at around 16:00 and finally we were told we were “free to leave” at 17:30-ish, but Zimra had questions for us first.  For the next thirty minutes we were quizzed about why we bought second-hand bikes, why they cost so little, and finally, why the fonts on our last two invoices were different. They seemed satisfied and set to let us go, but them they had yet another question; “are you sure you have just 41 bikes in that trailer??????”

By this time, all I wanted to do was do a Genghis Khan and fill a mass-grave with clearing agents and Zimra guys.  But instead, Washington and I unpacked the trailer, counted the bikes and then reloaded them. This time we left the border at 22:30 and after the customary police stops, we were in bed at around 1 in the morning.

Fortunately, The Beast braved this ordeal nearly as well as we did and only needed minor repairs, coolant, oil and regular drinks of the correct fuel. We returned him in one piece on Thursday…..

So there it is, how I got all the bikes to the shop.  Between now and the next time, I hope something changes to make it quicker and less costly.