The bikes are stored and refurbished on the majestic Goedgedacht farm, about 70km North of Cape Town.  The farm is 10km from Riebeek Kasteel, at the foot of the Riebeek Mountain and produces bio-olives for international export. What started out as just taking decent care of farm workers developed into a very efficient charity, the Goedgedacht Trust, which focuses on setting up community centres for the disadvantaged in poor neighbouring townships.

Amongst various other vital services provided by the centres, they are all planned to have a small bike shop providing the local community affordable bikes and related services, while we on the other hand were looking for a trusting partner to distribute our bike to the group of people that most are in need of a transportation medium. So, it was a perfect match from the start and we got even more than we were hoping for, including human resource management, tons of storage and work space, existing infrastructures and a lot of experience with similar projects, which got us up and runnig in a relatively short time.

Goedgedacht bio plantations	Goedgedacht at sunset	Container workshop

Low-end (charity) bikes

The lower end bikes are fixed  into a ride able condition and then sold in the bike shop by our technician, while also offering repair services, rentals and spare parts at nominal prices. This is never meant to be profitable, solely to avoid the negative effects often resulting from free hand-outs. These shops will provide permanent work to at least one person per center and so far we are already employing two people, one on a permanent basis and another on trial.

POP bike shop

High-end (Dazud branded) bikes

The best bikes in each shipment are earmarked soon after arrival and refurbished on the farm and are fully refurbished and rebranded to be sold online to more affluent customers in South Africa, in order to promote biking in general and to subsidize the entire project. The refurbishment is done by our technician (Carlton Claasen) as well, so he spends part of his week at the shop and the rest on the farm.

For starters the bikes are cleaned and all parts checked and tested to determine which parts can be refurbished or needs replacement. Parts which can still be used but needs replacement to ensure the best quality are handed down and used as spare parts for the low-end bikes. All new parts are then ordered while everything else is removed, including stripping the paint down to the bare metal, in order to be repainted with the new design and DAZUD branding.

The paint is removed using very basic technology, such as an electric car panel brush or sand paper, which avoids the use of toxic acids and allows the flexibility to “outsource” some of the work to those who can not afford a bike but want to earn one. These people live and work in the local community and have limited transport and therefore need simple tools for the job.  The final touches, which includes sanding the difficult to reach corners and welds, are done on the farm with abrasive blasting. For this we use more expensive steel pellets, which can be recycled numerous times making it very environmentally friendly, as well as being saver for the workers than cheaper alternatives. The sanded surfaces are then smoothed with sand paper, cleaned and degreased in order to have the perfect surface finish for the powder coating. Afterwards frames are handled without touching the surface and powder coated in a clean and draft free booth with a special low-cure powder, which needs less energy during the curing (baking) process.

For the latter we custom-built our own oven, which uses energy efficient halogen lights, rather heating elements and is optimized to cure 3 frames at once. Once cured the detailed cosmetics are applied using special laser-printed water decals (ultra-thin stickers), which are printed on the farm, allowing us to scale the cosmetics to each frame’s individual dimensions.  Currently all frames have the same design but this technology will enable us to produce frames with highly personalized cosmetics in the future. In the final step, the frames are powder coated with a transparent layer, which will protect the decals from the tough cycling conditions.

The bikes are then reassembled with the refurbished or new components and stored safely or delivered to our customers in batches to prevent unnecessary driving. Our aim is to produce virtually new bikes at second hand prices, thus giving our customers the best value for their money while supporting a greater cause.

Please have a look at our bike shop if you are looking for a bike or tell a friend or a colleague about it. We hope we can save a lot of money on marketing by relying on a good service and our customers and friends spreading the word…

We thank you in advance!

Sanding	Buffing	Blasting