EcoWorldly

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

The Internet search engine company Google, now a reputable green icon with its solar powered Mountainview headquarters, last year gave away bicycles to its staff in Europe, Asia and Africa as part of its efforts to reduce the impact of transportation on the environment.

Nearly 2,000 members of Google permanent staff benefited from this scheme that also provided free helmets emblazoned with the famous brand name.

The great bit about this stuff is that they had freedom to choose from a variety of trendy, sexy models from Raleigh, the German bike maker, and these included men’s and women’s hybrids, as well as a Google cruiser. Another sexy model, the Dahon Curve folding bike, was retailing at about US$ 280 in 2007.

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But while this may have been intended for the environment or to inculcate healthy habits in the Google staffers, a bicycle may be much more than that. Sexy or trendy may not be provide the demands of versatility that is a way of life elsewhere.

In Africa, bicycles to those who can afford them are everything and never to come in sexy, trendy models as those Google, or the Swedish furniture maker, Ikea, were offering their staff for free. Versatility is everything and depending on where you are, a bicycle can be a large farm truck or an ambulance saving lives deep in the African jungle.

Versatility is the catch word, and this comes with the carrying capacity (the larger the better) and improved handling. Quality is best when it can be flexible enough in terms of cheap repair-ability and maintenance with the easiest available spares.

But mobility that a bicycle provides means passibility in difficult terrain and on poor road conditions; there are those home made wooden ones that can carry loads of potatoes that are 6 times bigger than the bike itself. This smart, hardy ingenuity borrowed from the ant, supposedly.

These black mamba bicycles are manufactured in mild steel components, which makes the products relatively heavy in comparison to more modern light weight bikes available. This makes them considerably less expensive at just US$ 50 a piece on average.

There are those people who have maximized on the load carrying capacity of a bicycle through altering the design of a normal bike to carry very heavy loads adapting a rear 20” heavy duty wheel to allow for lower gravity which in turn means even larger loads.

But those that are truly remarkable are those that have been modeled after the Asian rickshaw tricycle. They can carry extremely heavy loads - anything from 200 liters of water, livestock, fruits, animal feed, commodities to garbage - at areas with flat and relatively hard surfaces.

Bicycles are also being used for transporting sick or injured persons in the rural areas to medical centers. Fitted with a detachable stretcher, suspended in shock-absorbers, a bicycle of this type provides the patient with a comfortable place to lie while being transported.

The choice between sexy or trendy and versatility really depends on where you are riding and why. But both ways, it could save lives.

Other Articles in Ecoworldly’s Bicycling Series

• Forget Sky-high Gas Prices, Biking Beats Them All! by Sam Aola Ooko
• UK: Bike Week 2008 by Pem Charnley
• Bicycle powered water pumps and filtration systems by Nayelli Gonzalez
• Italy’s Two-Wheeled Cities Speed Up Your Life Quality by Eva Pratesi
• In Chiang Mai, Social Attitudes Crush Bicycling Prospects by Masimba Biriwasha
• Google’s Sexy Bicycle Giveaways and Africa’s Versatile Bike Trucks by Sam Aola Ooko
• South Korean Bicycle Ninjas Do Battle Against Asthma by Gavin Hudson
• Of Course Cycling in Australia is Healthy, But What To Do With the Cars? by Ross Kendall
• Cheer up! Bicycling in Italy is a Daily Adventure by Eva Pratesi
• If You Want a Blissful Sex Life, Don’t Ride a Bike! by Sam Aola Ooko
• Bicycling in Peru: An Art of Adaptation by Levi Novey

Image credits: Acme and Geordie Mott at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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