The Hard Way: A 75-Dollar Bicycle Revolutionizes

You Are Here:

Home >> Freewheeling (cont.)

Today's Question
What should you do if you run into a cougar in the backcountry? answer

What is the number one backcountry skill people should learn? answer

Today's Question
What are the five best environmental movies of all time? answer

What are the greenest colleges? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine March 2004

Page:

The Hard Way
Freewheeling (cont.)

THERE ARE TWO Africas: the bush—ancient, agrarian, slow to change—and the city—vibrant, dissonant, evolving by the minute. This dichotomy is especially vivid in Ghana, an English-speaking country of 20 million, roughly the size of Oregon, on the Gulf of Guinea. Nicknamed the Gold Coast in the 17th century for its lucrative precious-metal trade, Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence, in 1957. Today, it's a relatively stable democracy with one of the most prosperous agricultural economies in West Africa.

In Ghana, as in the rest of the continent, life in the bush often revolves around basic human needs: food, water, shelter. Services remain so spread out and transportation options so few, villagers often walk enormous distances every day—to their fields, to the well, to market, to school, to medical clinics. Unimaginable hours of productivity and education are lost for lack of efficient transport, let alone the suffering endured because of too-distant health care. In rural Africa, less than 1 percent of the population owns a car. A staggering 70 percent of freight, from bricks to buckets of water, is still transported on the heads of women.

The problem is just the opposite in the city. Africa's inexorable rural-to-urban migration—at 4.9 percent, its annual urban growth rate is the highest in the world—has turned metropolitan centers into sprawling toxic messes. Too many cars, too many taxis, too many tro-tros, or private minivans. Traffic accidents occur with alarming frequency, and deaths per vehicle are 50 times those in the U.S. In the major urban areas of West Africa, 75 percent of commuters live within six miles of work; in Accra, however, 35 percent take a taxi or tro-tro, at a cost of about $1 round-trip—this despite the fact that incomes can be as little as $3 a day. The result is a country—and continent—in desperate need of alternative transportation.

Enter ITDP and Brad Schroeder. A rock climber, Appalachian Trail through-hiker, and competitive water-skier with a B.S. in environmental science, Schroeder joined the Peace Corps in 2000. He was stationed in Volivo, a village in southern Ghana with no electricity and no running water. Over the course of two years, he learned to speak Dangbe (one of Ghana's 75 tribal dialects), drilled five potable-water boreholes, built a canoe that sank in the Volta, came down with malaria, and developed a taste for akpeteshi, palm-wine moonshine.

At the end of his hitch, the sounds, smells, and tastes of Africa had so permeated Schroeder that he decided to stay in Ghana, took a job in Accra with ITDP, and began work on the California Bike program.

"The bikes aren't free—that would only put the local bike dealers out of business," Schroeder tells me over lunch at a restaurant the next day, back in the welter of Accra. He explains that he's organizing Ghanaian bike dealers into a co-op that will have the financial resources to buy and sell California Bikes on its own: "So many well-meaning NGO projects have devastated local business and replaced it with a welfare economy. That's unsustainable. Besides, it robs people of their pride." He fires down his de rigueur double shot of gin, stands up, and swings his leg over his bicycle. "C'mon," he says. "You can see how it's working." And back into the fray we fly.

Our first stop is Latex Foam, an Accra mattress factory that employs 300 workers and has just purchased California Bikes for 20 of its top employees. As we arrive, the workers are wheeling around, getting acquainted with their new rigs.

"They are too good to be true," says Eric Nayanyi, 35, the union chairman at the factory. "The workers with the California Bikes will no longer be stuck in traffic, missing wages."

Down the road, a powdered-milk company called Promasidor is awaiting delivery of 60 California Bikes. Managing director Dirk Laeremans tells us, "The price of gasoline doubled recently. These bicycles will save our employees considerable commuter money. My guess is that, in five to ten years, many, many people will be bicycling here."

Last on our agenda is Accra's city hall: We have an audience with Mayor Solomon Darko.

"Bicycles are an obvious transportation solution," says Darko, speaking from behind foot-high stacks of paper on his desk. "They're inexpensive, often faster than a car in the city, cost the government nothing, and are pollution-free." Darko is a city planner by profession, educated in the Netherlands and Great Britain. He and the Accra city government, in consultation with ITDP, are developing a master plan to build a system of bike lanes throughout the capital. "People will bicycle if they feel safe," he adds. "Why not? It's a healthy, beautiful thing. We already have excellent examples of this in our country. Have you been to Tamale, in the north?"

"We're flying up there tomorrow," Schroeder says.

The mayor listens carefully as Schroeder outlines our itinerary: first, a tour of the progressive, bike-friendly city of Tamale, followed by a three-day, 235-mile test ride of the California Bike through rural Ghana's roughest terrain. We'll pedal from Tamale to Yendi, Bimbila, and Salaga, then back up to Tamale, where we'll drop off our bikes at a dealer—the first in the area to join the ITDP program. When Schroeder finishes, Darko looks at us gravely and says: "That is no small thing."

Page:

•	Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

•	Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

•	Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.