Slum Transportation - Bicycles

I'm a bit of a bike nerd so I'll try to keep this brief or I might end up writing a masters thesis haha. I used to work at a bike shop and one of my fellow employees took part in an event called the Tour D'Afrique. The Tour D'Afrique is trip down the length of Africa (Cairo to Cape Town) by bicycle. What I find very interesting is the choices people make when choosing what kind of bike and what specific components they'll use during the trip.

The terrain is extremely varied, some sections paved and others can hardly be called roads. The trip takes about three months of cycling almost every day through dust storms and kids throwing rocks. My point is the bikes take a lot of abuse and I think this might make the riders choices transferable to a bike built for a slum dweller.

Reduction of complicated systems seems to be the first step. This means modern developments like suspension and hydraulic brakes are out, despite the fact that they would be usefull in rough terrain. Also modern building materials like carbon fibre and titanium would be out of the question because of cost and how difficult they are to repair if damaged. That leaves two common bike building materials, aluminium and steel. Of the two steel is probably the better choice because it is cheaper, can take more abuse and is more easily repaired. There is one more material which has emerged as a bit of a novelty in cycling but might have great potential in some developing countries: bamboo. Bamboo could be an interesting alternative because it would require much less infrastructure to manufacture frames and could develop into a cottage industry for slum residents. (this model in specific uses bamboo-fiber to wrap the joints)

Kona bicycles has a program called AfricaBike where they have developed a simple, rugged cruiser style bike and for every two of them they sell they donate one through an in house charity to those who need them in Africa.

CalfeeDesign.
http://www.calfeedesign.com/Bamboomtn.htm
(accesed December 7, 2010)


Tour d'Afrique Ltd.
Global Exhibitions, Races and Tours.
http://www.tourdafrique.com/
(accessed December 7, 2010)


Kona Africabike.
http://africabike.konaworld.com/
(accessed December 7, 2010)




Tristan Roberton