World Bicycle Relief

CHICAGO,ill, USA - (5 July) SRAM components and Trek bicycles start a charitable foundation called World Bicycle Relief to promote the bicycle as a most logical tool of relief at nature disasters like last year's tsunami. The idea is, that the bicycle as a workhorse for the local population is the most logical tool to start the reconstruction of daily life: mobility is of eminent importance. The first project by World Bicycle Relief is a shipment of 24,000 basic bikes for Sri Lanka. The bikes are made by a local bicycle factory, and thus will be a familiar product in technical specification and design. SRAM and Trek don't make third-world bicycles and components, but the initiators of the project think and hope that word about the bicycle as a tool of relief and as a basic means of transport will spread in the wake of the publicity usually generated by events like the tsunami. To fund the project, SRAM and Trek have donated substantial starter money, but they hope the bicycle industry will join them to fill the treasury. Look at www.worldbicyclerelief.org