Bike Drive in Massasachusetts

This year, Mason & Mason Assurance Group, Inc. has partnered with Mike's Bikes to help us collect bicycles in Massachusetts for the Mike's Bikes Foundation Africa Bike Drive. So far, they have collected more than 350 bikes, but they need your help to get to their goal of 500 bikes by the end of September. 500 bikes is the number of bikes that can fit in a full shipping container, bikes that make a difference in so many people's lives.


How can you help? If you are in the Bay State (not the Bay Area!) and you have bikes you would like to donate, please contact Tom Messier at (800) 759-1472. If you're not in Massachusetts, you can still help by posting this to your friends, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Ride to Rhodes

This past weekend, August 14-15, the Lesotho Cycling Association held national championships outside of Maseru. Eleven of Lesotho's bicycle clubs participated.

The riders were divided into three classes - Elite, Veterans, and Juniors - and gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded within these classes. Winners won jerseys, medals, and cash for bike parts.

On Saturday, the teams faced off on a rugged mountain bike course. On Sunday, the teams swapped out their tires and hit the road.

This year Tumi's Bicycle Club did quite well, outranking all other teams with 9 medals won. In the mountain bike race, Tumi and two others in the club won gold in their categories, as well as two bronze winners. In the road race, one of the members of the juniors team won gold, and several others won silver and bronze.

Congratulations Tumi and the Tumi's Bicycle Club Riders! Your hard work is paying off.

BMX Arrives in Lesotho

On July 31, Tumi's Bicycle Club BMX Track opened to the public in Khubetsoana, Lesotho. It is the first BMX track in Lesotho, and it has already proved to be popular with kids in the surrounding neighborhoods. Parents like it too, because it gives their kids a safe, off-road place to ride their bikes.

More information about the track and launch party can be found in the Lesotho Times.

Mike's Bikes Africa Video

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

Report from Tumi in Lesotho

Mike's Bikes just got some great photos from our partner in Lesotho, Tumisang Taabe.

Recently Tumi brought a bunch of bikes to a local school sports day for the kids to play with.

While waiting for their turn to compete in track and field events, children from nine local schools got to play with the bikes. The children were very excited to have be able to ride bikes, so the teachers have decided to allow them to start school cycling clubs.

Because of the uniquely affordable structure that Mr. Taabe is implementing through his cycling club, children from all of these schools will be able to join a cycling team.

In addition to helping the schools form cycling teams, Mr. Taabe has formed a bicycle club that holds regular clinics to teach its members how to clean and repair bicycles. These little boys had so much fun fixing their flat!

Cycling in Lesotho is really taking off! Members of the local team placed for the Tour De Lesotho, as did our partner, Tumi. Congratulations to the whole team!

San Rafael Patch gives a shout to our Africa Sister Shop projects

Many thanks to the San Rafael Patch, a great local news website, for doing this terrific blurb about our Sister Shop projects in Africa.

It's a reminder that, while we're doing what we can to bring the life-changing power of the bicycle to the people of developing countries, our efforts are home-grown and their success would not be possible without the generosity of our loyal local customers.

395 bikes headed to Zimbabwe, loaded in record time

Our Zimbabwe Sister Shop container is loaded up and in transit. Wondering how we stuffed all 395 bikes in there, plus crucial components and supplies? Click below:

How to load 395 Bikes (and a ton of components) on a 40ft. Shipping Container from Mike's Bikes on Vimeo.

This Wednesday June 9, help us load container #5 in San Rafael!

We're loading another container bound for Africa with over 450 bicycles donated by customers on Wednesday, June 9. The container loading will start at 9:00am at 24 Tiburon Street, and volunteers are welcome for any part of the day.

This is the fifth container to be sent to the Sister Shop Program by Mike’s Bikes through our bicycle-focused non-profit entity, the Mike’s Bikes Foundation. The bikes’ journey to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe will take approximately 8 weeks, and there they will offer their new owners desperately needed access to health care, education, and employment.

Collected from customers at all eight Mike's Bikes stores, these donated bikes will be sent to MK Cycles, to be established this year as the third Mike's Bikes Sister Shop in Africa. Mike’s Bikes owners Ken Martin and Matt Adams created the Mike’s Bikes Foundation to realize their goal of creating a self-sustaining source of affordable bicycle transportation in sub-Saharan African communities. Starting in 2008 with their first Sister Shop in Gaborone, Botswana, then continuing to the rural village of Mutjiku, Namibia in 2009, the Foundation is excited to be opening yet another locally-owned source of green, healthy transportation in Africa.

Africa donation bike container #4 was loaded this weekend in Virginia

Yep, you read right, our fourth Africa donation bike container was loaded this weekend in the far off land of Alexandria, Virginia. This latest container will ship out to Namibia shortly, and will provide much-needed bikes for our Sister Shop MakVeto Bicycles, in addition to helping replenish community shops that are supported by our esteemed partner Bicycle Empowerment Network, Namibia.

Why Virginia? The donation bikes for this latest effort were collected by another one of our partner organizations, Virginia-based Wheels to Africa. A nonprofit founded in 2005, Wheels to Africa's focus is harnessing the power of local youth in Virginia to collect bikes for donation to Africa. The Mike's Bikes Foundation is covering shipping, ground transport, and customs charges for this latest container.

In addition to the re-supply of MakVeto, we will be supplying a portion of these donated bikes to BEN Namibia. In return, they'll send some of the only expert bike mechanics in the country to stay with Erasmus, Ludwig, and Mukena at MakVeto, and provide in-depth service training to them that our all-too-short visit could not. Stay tuned for more info on this fourth Africa bike container, and the astounding progress that MakVeto is making in the use of bicycle transportation in the Caprivi Region of Namibia.

The strike strikes!

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!