I know a few weeks back we said that our African adventure would have no sponsors involved. Well that’s no longer exactly true!!! In addition to two of our long-term sponsors; Mountain Equipment and Profeet, who are once again providing us with their exceptionally brilliant kit and making the trip possible. We are also joined last minute by ‘Raleigh‘. It was a bit of a stroke of luck really, during a conversation with their marketing team we discovered that they were involved with an African project called ‘Re-Cycle‘.

‘Raleigh’ have recently joined up with the charity Re-Cycle. The idea is simple… in Britain, thousands of bicycles are thrown away or lie unused in sheds, while in Africa walking is the principal means of transport. The burden of walking up to 4 hours a day (for collecting water, or walking to school) adds massively to the average family’s workload, hampering their economic and education opportunities. A bicycle simply cuts travel time to a fraction and allows for carrying passengers and heavy loads.

‘Re-Cycle’s’ mission is to collect and ship second-hand bicycles and spare parts to Africa. With the help of their partners, they teach local people the skills to repair and maintain them, to improve their lives in a sustainable way.

The project is obviously having fantastic success as they have sent over 23,000 bikes so far!!! Not bad.

That broken rusty old piece of scrap propped up in the corner of your shed will actually not be far off the bicycles that will transport us 8000km across Africa in a few weeks. So if you would like to play a part in Re-Cycle, by donating your old disused bikes to a great cause, then please visit www.re-cycle.org or www.raleigh.co.uk.

A huge thank you to Mountain Equipment, Profeet and Raleigh.

Katie-Jane