Zambikes team members at the factory in Zambia holding one of their bamboo bicycles. Photo:Zambikes.org

*This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.*

Zambikes has been helping Africans get around on locally-made bikes since 2007. Now they want to get the rest of the world rolling, too, but with a twist: these new cycles are almost 100 percent bamboo.

Zambia, where Zambikes is based, ranks a staggeringly low 150 out of 169 on the UNDP’s Human Development Index. Vaughn Spethmann and Dustin McBride witnessed the company’s dire economic straits and high unemployment rate first-hand during a 2004 university trip and founded Zambikes upon their return to the U.S., according to The American. Believing business to be the best way to remedy the country’s woes, they wanted their new company to “employ and empower the uneducated and underprivileged,” Spethmann told Social Capital Markets Europe. Spethmann says that as of May 2011, "Zambikes has distributed more than 8,000 bicycles, 900 bicycle ambulances and cargo carts, supplied much-needed spare parts, sold upwards of 200 bamboo bicycle frames worldwide and have employed more than 100 Zambians." Zambians who use the cargo cart can increase daily earning from $2 a day to $20, he said.

Zambikes wants to expand overseas, and they plan to do so sustainably. In addition to the metal bikes they produce in Africa, they now export bamboo bicycles to the United States. Bamboo is exceedingly easy to grow and can shoot up 2 inches an hour under the right conditions, according to PlanetGreen.com. It’s flexible and light, and the bikes made from it can be put together using basic tools and machinery, according to the BBC. Some might question the structural integrity of a bamboo bicycle, but the bikes’ proponents say they’re just as sturdy as the traditional metal frames. The Guardian’s GreenLiving Blog took one of Calfee’s bamboo models out for a spin in 2009 and found that it was comfortable, with great shock absorption. If you need to see it to believe it, check out this video of three large men piling onto a bamboo bike made in Ghana.

Zambikes isn’t the only company getting in on the action, though. Bamboosero and the Bamboo Bike Project are also trying to help Africans ride to economic prosperity. Now those in the market for a shiny new cycle can get a killer set of wheels and help support African entrepreneurs, too.

Margo Conner is a senior at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, majoring in international affairs. Read her other contributions to Global Envision.

Washington, D.C.’s bike sharing program has 1,100 bikes. London’s system has 6,000. And Paris has more than 20,000.

But on the other side of the globe, Hangzhou, China has them beat with more than 60,000, according to a recent report by National Geographic.

To see how it all works, check out this short from Streetfilms:

Bike shares -- where a user can pick up a bicycle at one service point, ride it, and then drop it off at another and walk away -- are growing in popularity. China, along with many other developing nations, has a long-held cultural tie to bicycling. Demand for automobiles skyrocketed in recent decades, but in a city of 6.7 million like Hangzhou, it would be impossible to build enough roads to support this, not to mention environmental concerns.

Bike shares are cheap (nearly free for many in Hangzhou), highly accessible, and part of a sustainable urban growth model. Hangzhou hopes to expand its system to 120,000 bikes by 2020 and other cities are taking notice of its success. Companies in Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City are making a go of it and hope to remove the training wheels soon.

Photo: youngrobv (flickr)

A bike can change a life.

The benefits of a bike can range from awakening your inner child to being an eco-friendly commuter. In a developing country, however, the simple bike becomes a locally sustainable method of alleviating poverty and building healthy communities.

The bicycle means greater access to educational and economic opportunities. (Cool fact: A bike can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian and uses five times less energy.) But in communities where people make only a few hundred dollars a year, a bicycle that costs an average of $100 is financially out of reach.

To help bridge the gap, various organizations have sprung up as bicycle distributors for developing communities mostly in Africa.

World Bicycle Relief, an organization fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zambia, describes the power of bicycles in its mission statement:

Simple, sustainable transportation is an essential element in disaster assistance and poverty relief. Bicycles fulfill basic needs by providing access to healthcare, education and economic development. Bicycles empower individuals, their families, and their communities. Our mission is to provide access to independence and livelihood through The Power of Bicycles.

Organizations like this depend on donated bikes, which they then ship to community-based organizations that employ and train locals as bike mechanics. In Namibia, the Bicycling Empowerment Network has bicycle workshops (called Bicycle Empowerment Centres) stocked with tools and bicycle parts that act as the hub for bike distribution and repairs.

Even grassroots groups in the U.S. have joined the cause. Bikes to Rwanda, a project supported by Stumptown Coffee in Portland, Ore., ships cargo bicycles to farmers in a Rwandan coffee cooperative.

With today’s gas prices, cycling is a more attractive alternative for residents of places from Amsterdam to Zambia. But bikes aren't limited to transport anymore. They can be modified to sharpen knives, double as an ambulance, and even filter and store water — all innovative adaptations geared towards positive social change.

Ciclovía Documentary shot by Streetfilms

Bogotá, Colombia is holding a 70-mile long block party. And everyone’s invited.

Ciclovía — "bike path" in Spanish — is an event that closes down major roads for pedestrian use every Sunday and holiday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Created in 1976, it rapidly grew from eight miles and 140,000 bicyclists to 70 miles and an average of 1.5 million weekly riders. Ciclovía is championed as a community building event that attracts people from all backgrounds for a day of biking, walking, skating and dancing in the streets.

In the above video, Bogota’s former park commissioner Guillermo (Gil) Penalosa discusses Ciclovía’s main appeal: social integration.

You will see people in $5,000 bikes and others in $50 bikes, and all having the same fun! Rich and poor, young and old, men and woman, tall or short... ALL!

Cited for “endless benefits” such as the improvement of personal and public health, Ciclovía has inspired other cities to develop similar programs, including Guadalajara, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; Santiago, Chile; and Paris, where an expressway along the Seine is transformed into a pedestrian refuge one month out of the summer.

Cities in the U.S. are also developing similar programs, starting with El Paso, Texas. This Sunday Portland, Ore., is clearing 6 miles of roadway for six hours in its inaugural "Sunday Parkways." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his city's plans for Ciclovía-like event this August that would stretch from 72nd to the Brooklyn Bridge along Park Avenue.

Events such as Ciclovía are not only free, but they also bring all sorts of people together to get healthy and build a happy community. It seems like a no-brainer that every city should have a Ciclovía!

This isn't an adult tricycle, it's an innovative way to reduce the number of people — estimated at 1.1 billion — who lack access to clean drinking water.

The Aquaduct is essentially a bicycle that can transport and filter up to 20 gallons of water at a time.

It's simple to use: Just ride to your local water source and pour water into the rear holding tank. As you ride home, the pedaling forces the water through a filtration system and into a smaller holding tank in the front. You can also filter the water by pedaling in place.

Watch the video to see how it all works.