Where The Buffalo Roam: How Buffalo Bicycles Is Creating Social And Economic Empowerment
In America, whether our bike is a source of adventure (hello, new towns and terrain) or a ticket to a healthier life (goodbye, stress and fatigue), we generally ride them by choice.
In Africa, however, bicycles are also an essential form of transportation, and not just from place to place. Bikes have the power to propel someone into a better life. A bike can cut a student’s two-hour walk to school in half, help a small business owner sell more eggs and milk at markets far from home, and allow a healthcare worker to reach more patients — and save more lives — in rural communities. “A bicycle is not just a bicycle,” says Brian Berkhout, World Bicycle Relief’s (WBR) Zimbabwe managing director. “It’s a tool for someone to achieve their educational dreams, provide for their household, or take care of sick children. It’s the magical enabler.”
WBR has worked to get that magical enabler into the hands of more deserving individuals — a lot more. Since its founding in 2005, the nonprofit has distributed roughly 850,000 bicycles across 21 countries (primarily in Africa), providing more than 2 million people with the mobility necessary for education, healthcare, and economic empowerment. Having two reliable wheels at their disposal means these individuals can conquer distance, achieve independence, and thrive. But WBR doesn’t supply just any bikes.
“We created a bicycle that is purpose-designed with the voice of those people who need it the most,” says WBR CEO Dave Neiswander, adding that the organization also builds the community infrastructure, including bike shops and a replacement parts pipeline, required to sustain it. “That’s the core value of the organization.”
Bicycles first arrived in Africa in the late 19th century, and over the next 100 years, became an important tool for transportation, trade, and daily life. These days, bikes are readily available and, at an average of $90 U.S., relatively inexpensive. But while cost and quantity haven’t been issues, quality has. In many African countries, Berkhout explains, it’s common to see signs in bike shop windows declaring, “No refund, no return.” Once a bike leaves the store, any issues it might have — cheap pedals, a weak fork, faulty brakes — become the buyer’s responsibility.
“This created a race to the bottom on price,” Berkhout says. “Stores competed to sell the cheapest bikes possible, regardless of quality. Unfortunately, this sent the wrong message up the supply chain to manufacturers in China and India, reinforcing the belief that African markets only wanted the cheapest bikes. The result was a flood of bicycles that didn’t meet the demands of rural use.”
Started by F.K. Day, cofounder of global bicycle component manufacturer SRAM Corporation, and his wife Leah Missbach Day, WBR knows a thing or two about what goes into a good bike. When the nonprofit began working closely with African communities in 2007, its staff quickly recognized the local bike inventory’s limitations. “Africa probes for weaknesses,” Berkhout says. “It’s really, really tough on machinery. If there’s something that’s not going to cope, it will come up.”
Luckily, WBR had the resources to address those shortcomings, thanks, in part, to its founders’ decades-long relationships with the cycling industry’s leading product engineers, supply chain vendors, and testing facilities. It wasn’t just a matter of making a quality bike, however. WBR needed to design a bike for the unique challenges and needs of riders in rural Africa. Over the next five years, despite challenges like sourcing reliable components, establishing local manufacturing and assembly operations, and ensuring affordability, that’s precisely what the organization did.
Testing Grounds
In Africa, dirt and gravel roads are pockmarked with deep ruts. When it rains, mud abounds. When it doesn’t, the sun is relentless. A quality mountain bike, say a Giant Trance X 29, might seem like the answer to these conditions. And sure, the $2,200 steed would perform superbly in this rugged terrain, but who’s going to fix it when its wheel is tacoed by an especially nasty pothole? The closest bike shop with the needed parts is likely in a different country. There’s also the matter of repair costs, Berkhout points out, which are likely far beyond what the owner could afford, even if they received the bike for free.
Enter a whole different beast. The Buffalo features a threaded headset and quill stem. Those components may seem outdated to Western cyclists, but they’re simple to adjust and there’s a healthy supply of replacement parts. The frame, which uses a durable, dipping top tube to accommodate both child and adult riders, is made from burly, TIG-welded carbon steel, and the brakes are weather-resistant and reliable. Further down, the wheels have high-grade chromoly steel axles and stiff, 13-gauge spokes that are unlikely to be damaged if a stray branch makes its way in between them. Kenda tires built specifically for Buffalo Bicycles sacrifice low weight for puncture-resistance. The built-in rack is rated for 220 pounds (though it often carries more), and a rear-axle kickstand automatically disengages when the bike rolls forward. Users can tie down their load and simply start pedaling. Front and rear fenders, a UV-resistant seat and grips, and a bell all come standard.
At 50 pounds, the aptly named Buffalo is not built for speed. It is, however, built for longevity and easy maintenance. Every component can be adjusted or repaired using standard, non-bike-specific tools like a wrench or screwdriver, which makes maintenance possible in remote and resource-limited locales. “You would never call it the cheetah,” laughs Neiswander, “but it’s the workhorse you can count on. It’s built to thrive in the toughest conditions where durability and reliability matter more than speed.”
“A bicycle is not just a bicycle … it’s the magical enabler.”
That heft didn’t faze Eurobike Award judges last summer when they honored Buffalo Bicycles’ new model, the Utility S2, with a Gold Award. With an industry-first two-chain, two-speed drivetrain engineered to withstand harsh environments, the S2 can shift between the high and low gears without the need for a fragile derailer or expensive internal gear hub. All sensitive components are housed in the freewheel and the dual chains create redundancy, both of which help prevent ride-ending mechanicals.
While WBR is a nonprofit, its Buffalo Bicycles subsidiary is a for-profit social enterprise. The business sells its bikes, including the Utility S2, for $175 to $230 through its own retail shops in several African countries — Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and Tanzania among them — as well as Colombia in South America. Profits are then reinvested into WBR to open more bike shops in more underserved communities, train local mechanics, and increase inventory to meet growing demand. “Buffalo Bicycles were never built to maximize profit,” Berkhout says. “They were always built to maximize function.” Considering multiple other non-governmental organizations (Oxfam, Plan International, and Save the Children to name a few) have partnered with WBR to purchase and distribute Buffalo Bicycles, Berkhout is confident that the venture is hitting the right mark at the right price.
Buffalo Bicycles doesn’t just manufacture bikes, however. In 2023, it sold $1.7 million U.S. worth of spare parts (compared to $2.1 million in bicycles). All those extra headsets, cranks, and wheels kept Buffalo Bicycles up and running, and because the parts are universal, they can be used to upgrade bikes of the $90 variety. WBR also trains one mechanic for every 50 bikes it distributes to create a network of qualified mechanics who’ll earn a living while keeping Utility S2s and other bicycles functional. “We are strengthening the entire bicycle market in the African countries where we operate,” says WBR executive director of programs Sean Granville-Ross, who’s based in Kenya, “fostering economic resilience and opportunity in the process.”
Headwinds and Hope
Selling a bike twice the amount that consumers expect is no easy feat. “We actually had to create a mind shift away from the idea that a bicycle should be $100 or less,” Berkhout says. “What we want to do is get to a point where people don’t think about the bicycle itself. We want them to think about their business, and the bicycle is just a tool for their business.”
Research in the global development sector shows that giving items away, whether a bicycle or a farm animal, often leads to unwanted outcomes. Among other issues, it creates dependency. So instead of handing out bikes Oprah-style, WBR asks the questions who could and who should pay. Bikes financed by donors or the government are distributed to community health workers and nurses as an essential piece of equipment. On the other hand, small business owners can buy their bikes outright through a payment plan, and in the future they may even be able to get a micro-loan from WBR.
In the education realm, Buffalo Bicycles are donated to rural schools which then own them like desks and chalkboards. The bikes are issued to children based on gender (WBR aims to provide 70 percent of its bikes to women and girls because they face greater obstacles to quality education, employment, and healthcare) and need, such as how far a student lives from the school. The kids then keep the bike until they graduate. Since the Buffalo S2 can carry so much weight, however, these children rarely ride to school alone. One bicycle carries at least one if not two additional passengers, which means 200 bicycles can help more than 400 children get an education.
“All answers are found in the communities that we serve.”
That impact extends far beyond students, too. “The beauty of the bicycle is that when the kids are not in school, it doesn’t sit in the corner,” Granville-Ross says. “It’s going to work, fetching water, going to market, taking somebody in the household who’s sick to the health center.”
A 2023 WBR report showed that students were significantly more likely to get to class on time. Late days declined by an average of 81 percent in Kenya, and absenteeism declined by nearly 90 percent in Zambia. Student commutes were nearly halved. In the healthcare sector, access to services improved significantly because travel time decreased by as much as 50 percent, and households with bicycles also reported a whopping 43 percent increase in monthly income on average.
Those impacts, however, depend heavily on fundraising. To build support, WBR produces short documentaries about its bikes that are shown at bike shops around the world, and its galas feature live auctions of cycling gear such as a replica race bike handed over personally by pro Swiss mountain biker Nino Schurter. Other fundraisers include Gran Fondos, Zwift challenges, and multiday cycling trips through the countries it supports. (Look for an eight-day adventure through Kenya in May 2025.)
Although Buffalo Bicycles has carved out a niche in developing countries, WBR always has new hills to climb. In recent years, for example, unscrupulous enterprises flooded the African cycling market with Buffalo Bicycle impersonators made of cheap materials which tarnished the reputation the organization had worked so hard to build. Environmental factors like floods and droughts, along with weak economies and catastrophic hyperinflation, also complicate its efforts in these regions.
While the challenges ahead are big, WBR knows where to find solutions. “We have a motto,” Neiswander says. “All answers are found in the communities that we serve.”
Thus, WBR remains committed to keeping its end user — riders in rugged, rural areas with limited resources — at the heart of what it does as it works towards its goal of delivering one million bicycles. “We have the solution to help amplify and accelerate the goals that these countries and organizations are trying to achieve,” Neiswander says. “Bicycles are not just tools for transportation. They are tools for transformation, unlocking potential and creating lasting change for individuals and communities alike.”
