Aspen Community News

Bicycles are intricate, multi-purpose, global machines. Here in the mountains, they carry us to peaks and ridges on sunny days. Before McDonalds opened in Beijing, they choked the highways and took people to work. And, if you ever strolled the campus at Stanford, you know they morph into sleek missiles, crisscrossing the campus in mass at raging speeds.  
 
One place we don’t generally associate with bikes is Africa, where we see people walking in throngs—to clinics and refugee camps—or alone, with pots and straw bundles on their heads. As the USA Pro Cycling Challenge races through Aspen on August 24th, a group of locals hopes to tap the event to mobilize people across the world. 
 
Bicycles for Humanity (B4H) is a more of a movement than a formal organization, where over 20 international chapters raise money to buy industrial containers to ship 400-plus donated bikes to various parts of Africa. The containers transform on arrival into “Bicycle Empowerment Centers,” or BECs, instant bike shops manned by local workers selected by tribal chiefs and trained in repair and management. Birthed in British Columbia in 2006, more than 40 BECs have been shipped to Africa over the past five years. 
 
Mark Stevens, a cyclist from Glenwood Springs, discovered B4H through a series of emails shared among friends. He researched the website, contacted a group in Denver, and set his sites on the Pro Challenge as the perfect inroad for a new local chapter. He recruited bike shops, storage facilities and transporters up and down the valley to collect, move and house donated bikes until enough money is raised to finance shipment to Karamoja, a remote region of Uganda. 
 
“There are bike factories in parts of Uganda, but people in Karamoja can’t afford bikes,” Stevens explained. “Logistics are complex, since containers have to go through Mombasa and into land-locked districts across narrow, rocky roads. We decided to join the Karamoja Bicycle Initiative for a variety of reasons, including Paul Sherwin.”
 
Each B4H chapter is an independent entity with rights to all decisions, including where in Africa their containers land. Sherwin is one of three broadcasters hosting a benefit for the movement at Belly Up in Aspen following the pro-bikers’ descent down Independence Pass.
 
“Early B4H chapters had to travel to Africa and develop partnerships and infrastructure. We’re hitchhiking on those efforts, as well as Sherwin’s influence in Uganda, where he heads a large commercial enterprise. It’s tricky business to transport these containers through border crossings safely, but Sherwin has worked out a deal with the country’s first lady, who agreed to put her name on every shipping label. That tells everyone in Mombasa ‘hands off,’” Stevens said.
 
Two other top racing broadcasters—Phil Liggett and Bob Roll—will join Sherwin next week at the Belly Up, where Stevens’ goal is to raise $15,000. Because the container ultimately becomes the bike shop, each local chapter must purchase a standard 10 X 40 crate and pay for local transport and storage. Every dollar goes to expenses, since B4H has no staff and pays no salaries. Donated bikes are inspected on arrival, repaired as needed and sold at market value.
 
Stevens is working with a core group of ten volunteers, seven bike shops and two storage centers between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, in addition to Belly Up, which is hosting the cocktail hour benefit featuring food, drinks and silent auction. Their goal is to send one container from the Roaring Fork Valley to Karamoja between now and 2012. 
 
“Once we do this as a community, we have a connection to the village of Karamoja. People from here can travel to Africa, meet the people involved, see how the center is doing, and take photos to send home,” Stevens said. “To me, that psychological link between the people gathering the bikes and the people receiving them is a powerful motivator.”

For tickets to Wednesday’s benefit, contact Belly Up at 970-544-9800 or www.bellyupaspen.com. For drop-ff points and more information contact Mark Stevens, (970) 948-3097 or mark@designprojectinc.com.