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Troy Lee Designs is proud to announce it's involvement with the 3rd Annual 50 mile ride for Project Rwanda. The event is being held on March 21st, 2009 beginning at Cook's Corner restaurant in Trabuco Canyon, CA, and winding through several of Orange County's popular riding areas. The goal of this charitable event is to raise funds to supply "coffee bikes" to the coffee growers in the African country of Rwanda, who have been using wooden "bikes" (which look like something out of the Flintstones) to transport their coffee cherries from the orchards to the washing stations where they are prepared for sale on the worldwide market.

"Amazing potential for an international UCI event"

Tour of Rwanda 2008

The Tour of Rwanda 2008 organized by FERWACY (the Rwandan Cycling Federation) was a complete step up from last year’s event. The foreign teams were provided support vehicles in addition to food and lodging. The results were quickly tallied with each team receiving electronic copies daily. There were no accidents of any gravity and the police control and escorts were impressive. Indeed I was impressed by this year’s Tour, especially after last year’s event that was poorly organized. The new blood at the Federation has proved itself and they have been a real pleasure to work with throughout the year.

The Kigali warehouse is no longer because we found a new place very close to the Team Rwanda house for our “Coffee (Cargo) Bikes". This new warehouse is located at the Catholic Church woodworking and mechanic shop. The cost of the Kigali warehouse was going from $800/ month to over $1000/month, the current warehouse will run $550/month and is closer to where our offices are.

The concentration of bicycles in the Volcanoes region is the highest in Rwanda, in under a month we will be delivering over 250 bikes to the Bukonya Coffee cooperative nearby. We are planning to set up a bike shop not only at the Bukonya co-op but also in the town of Musanzi to service the bikes in the area.

Exerpt from Rangefinder Magazine November 2008:

Ever since Danielle began her career in photojournalism she wanted to do more than take pictures. She wanted to capture the true essence of people both in their pain and in their grace. Traveling to Africa was an incredible opportunity that opened Danielle's eyes to a deeper understanding of the world and the beauty of different cultures. Danielle hopes to continue to use her photography as a tool to bless others by capturing their true beauty.

Last year right before the Wooden Bike Classic Tom and I were riding and came across a giant of a man with masses of potatoes on a remarkable bike of his. He kept up with us going about 20mph and faded when we came to a hill. We both shook our heads in disbelief at what we had just witnessed.

The following day on a completely different road headed towards Gisenyi we found this same man on his remarkable bike. This time he had no load and looked as if he was headed to his next pick up. His speed was faster and we wanted a bit more interaction so we tarried alongside of him long enough to get photos of him and his bike and to find out his name, Leonard.

• Enjoy the Best Specialty Coffee in the World
• Support Rwandan Coffee Growers
• Fund Project Rwanda

Every Cup helps Project Rwanda

Now you can enjoy fabulous Specialty Coffee and help Project Rwanda. We have partnered with Equal World Coffee to bring you world class, Specialty Coffee from Rwanda, at about the same price you would pay for ordinary coffee in the grocery store. Order online and enjoy convenient home delivery. Project Rwanda will receive $3 for every bag you order.

The Best Coffee in the World

Almost every person I talked to wants to come to Rwanda to see what I described and what I am so enthusiastic about.

- coach Jock

The invitation came after the finish of the 94.7 race in South Africa, when Nic White (Africa Tour Champion 2008) invited me on a MTB tour in Lesotho. He does a yearly 4-day MTB tour with a group of riders and he asked me if I wanted to join them. Nic and I had already been talking about bringing his group to lead mountain bike tours in Rwanda in his off season. This would give me a chance to meet the people that would want to come to “tour” Rwanda on a mountain bike and to see how he organizes his trip. There was also the draw of seeing a country on a mountain bike that I had only brushed through before. My answer was an instant YES… so the plan was set.

The Case for Coffee-Trail Biking in Rwanda

The Brenthurst Foundation¹

Background and Rationale

Countries get rich by making or doing things and selling these goods and services.

Rwanda is on the cusp of the most significant and promising economic changes in its history. But to make these potential changes a reality, Rwanda will have to turn its geographical disadvantages into assets by becoming a regional hub for business services, finance, information technology and the duty-free warehousing of consumer goods. Rwanda will need to become a not-to-bemissed destination for tourists inbound to Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for wildlife excursions, offering strategically packaged ‘experiences’ that none of these three can provide. Rwanda will have to leverage its status as a safe, orderly environment where foreign investors build industrial facilities for adding value to timber and minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It will have to become the Dubai of Central Africa, a forward-based warehouse and transaction centre connected to suppliers in the Gulf and China.

Rwanda’s landlocked position, far from a port or a large regional market, is a major disadvantage in realising such a vision. Certainly, it has made the costs of transport very high; and has meant, too, that the cost of inputs into business, especially manufacturing enterprises, has until now been prohibitive.

-A film by Isaac and Jacob Seigel-Boettner

In July of 2008, 7 Santa Barbara Middle School students packed up their bikes and boarded a plane to Kigali, Rwanda. A few had been abroad, but none to the small African country that many can only associate with the horrific genocide that claimed nearly one million lives just over a decade ago. Over the next three weeks, they pedaled across the Land of One Thousand Hills, experiencing Rwanda in a way that few mzungus (white people) ever have...from the bike saddle. They were chased by mobs of children, bargained for bananas on the roadside, taught aspiring young Rwandan cyclists how to fix flat tires, and played soccer with genocide orphans. From the Lion King-like plains of Akagera National Park to the terraced coffee farms of Butare to the bustling streets of Kigali, they saw the Rwanda that does not make the headlines...the Rwanda that is trying its best to move beyond the images on CNN and in Hotel Rwanda. The real Rwanda.

Though they saw reflections of the genocide in the eyes of many of the locals whom they met, the also saw deep reservoirs of strength and hope for the future. The most common word they heard from the mobs who ran along side them on the road was 'komera!'...'be strong!' None of them stepped off the tarmac at the Kigali airport the same.

The 5 minute preview clip for Mzungus in the Mist won the 1st Annual Power to the Peaceful Online Film Festival.

View the 5 min. preview

The final 20 minute version is almost in the can, and will be submitted to film festivals across America in the coming year, starting with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in January. Keep an eye out.

Thanks,
Jacob

Small businesses are turning coffee from a low-priced commodity into a high-priced specialty crop.

You can see coffee growing everywhere on the slopes of Rwanda's beautiful rolling hills. Coffee is Rwanda's number one export crop. The country's current focus is to turn coffee grown there from a low-priced commodity crop into a higher-priced specialty crop -- coffee that you would buy at Starbucks, and other high-end coffee purveyors.

Click the link below to view a short video, Kaningu describes what these small enterprises are doing to help regenerate Rwanda's economy and its image abroad.

Read more...(and view the video)