Shipment

Shipping the bikes is the most expensive part of the project and also not the most environmentally friendly solution but so far we haven’t found any alternative, but we are constantly on the look out for ways to make it cheaper or to reduce our footprint. Any constructive suggestions in this are always welcome 🙂

As soon as we’ve collected a critical number of bikes we start making true shipping arrangements. For out first shipment we sent a small 6 m container and managed to squeeze in 180 bikes but in future we are hope to double this by using a 12 m container, which should bring both the carbon footprint and costs down considerably.

We are extremely grateful to have amazing friends who volunteered to help load the bikes, which takes about a day for the small container, since we need to prepare and catalogue all the bikes before hand. Each bike gets a unique number and all the details, which are displayed later in the online bike shop. In order to fit in as many bikes as possible the handlebars are turned go degrees and the paddles are removed, as well as other accessories and the seats if needed. We try not to overwork people and make it a torn event with something to do for every one, so if you would like to help us out next time please let us know.

We are very fortunate that the transport company is kind enough to let us load the container over a weekend and that the Dornbirn town council allows us to use part of a parking lot close to our storage house – all things that would have added to the costs…

The container is then collected early on the Monday morning and delivered all the way to our storage facilities in South Africa where the bikes get refurbished.