Phase 3... Sooo Excited!!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a good Chriskwanzica! I for one have been busy!

First off, we have sold three of our World Bicycle Relief fundraiser pictures! Thank you so much to our generous donors (we will have those off mid-January) and if you are still waiting for your scarves, fear not! They are finished and will be in the mail on Saturday.

Second, I would like to introduce Phase 3 of our fund raising challenge. From the very beginning of this blog, Meli, Melyssa, Caryl and I have been happy to keep this an ad-free zone. The few times we have considered the possibility of it, it has never felt right. Well, things are about to change. After testing the waters with a few local business people we know, we have started a program where local, small bicycle related/friendly businesses have been approached with this idea-

A $150 dollar donation made directly to World Bicycle Relief gets them 3 months of advertising on the blog! We already have 2 takers! This has put us in the over $1000 zone!!!!

Zero Per Gallon is a small company owned by our friend Kit. He makes all kinds of fun shirts and stickers. The sticker on my Bobike seat is one of his. It is a small business run by a man who truly loves bicycles and the people who ride them.

My Dutch Bike is a growing family-owned shop that specializes in sales and repair of Dutch bicycles of the upright, practical, cargo/kid carrying, dignified style. MDB proprietress, Soraya is a wonderful woman with a passion for getting anyone on a bicycle.

That's Soraya on one of her Workcycles. As lovely as she is on the outside, she is more so on the inside and her business is a reflection of that!

So, in the next few days look for a side bar with company logos that will link to various businesses here in the SF Bay Area, but hopefully also from other spots around the country! All of us here at the blog would love to just shout THANK YOU!!!!! to Kit and Soraya for helping us jumpstart this project! If this goes well, just imagine all the good that could come from it!

Also, let us know what you think!

Phase 2

The donations keep coming in! We are over $450, which means $900 with the dollar for dollar matching at World Bicycle Relief! Holy Cow!!!

With that in mind, we have come up with, what I hope is, a great new incentive to give to this amazing organization. Caryl and I have each chosen some of our photos to have professionally printed in a very limited addition with just 5 of each available. Each will be signed and numbered by Caryl or myself. Each will be printed to a size compatible with an 8x10 frame.

Change Someone's Life. Buy Some Art!

$20 gets you one, $40 gets you 2 and $60 gets you all three! Every penny of that purchase goes directly as a donation to World Bicycle Relief. And if you donate before Dec 31st, WBR is able to match that donation dollar for dollar. Twice the bike love, people!

Interested? Donate here, write "Change Your Life. Ride A Bike!" in the box for "In honor of", and the blog address in the little box provided (cylrab@gmail.com). If you wish to have one of the photos then forward the thank you email they send you with the amount you donated so we know how many pictures to send you along with an address of where to send your photos.

Photos will be shipped mid-January and we will ship overseas, so if you are on the other side of the world, don't be shy!

We Did It!

We have reached 10!!! Not only that, a couple of our readers gave way more than $15 so we have exceeded our initial goal (I am working with WBR to find out exactly how much we are raising!) Thank you so much!!!!

The scarf giveaway is done (I can only knit so much!), but I think we can keep this going in a different way. World Bicycle Relief is matching all donations dollar for dollar through the 31st of December. Maybe I can come up with a new giveaway (I have some surprises up my sleeves).
If you are still on the fence about sending a donation think about this- girls in Africa are expected to complete all household chores before doing anything else, which frequently includes heavy animal care and fetching water from wells far from home. This all has to be done before going to school, usually several miles from home. Imagine fetching enough water for a family of 5 from 5 blocks away by foot everyday. Imagine then walking 4 miles to school . All before 7 am. All when you are 12 years old. Could you do it without help? A $15 donation could make that help happen.

In the meantime, I am off to knit!! Maybe someplace like here!

Half Way

3 of 4 colour choices (cream not pictured)

We are more than half way to our World Bicycle Relief goal! Six wonderful people have come forward and sacrificed a week's coffee budget for the purpose of getting someone in Africa a life changing bicycle. A huge thanks to you 6! Your scarves will be going out this week (the first 3 today, the next three over the next few days as I finish knitting them!) .

One of our donors was able to get her employer to match her $15! So while I don't count that to our goal, it is still fantastic! And even better? Now through Dec 31st, all donations to WBR are being matched dollar for dollar!!! So everything we do goes twice as far!

If you have been thinking of giving, now is the time! $15 donated in honor of "Change Your Life. Ride A Bike!" and verified to our address (cylrab@gmail.com) will not only get you a hand made by me scarf, it will be turned into $30 by WBR and it will help change someone's life in ways we can scarcely imagine.

For more info read here and here.

And So It Begins!

We have 4 contributions in our World Bicycle Relief Giveaway! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! That makes us almost half way to a bicycle in the hands of someone who really, really needs one. For this Holiday season, we can give someone dignity, opportunity and independence!


We only need 6 more $15 contributions to make this happen. Remember, a $15 contribution made in the name of "Change Your Life. Ride A Bike!" and confirmed to our email address, cylrab@gmail.com, will go way farther than that same $15 could ever get you in the coffee shop you would have blown it in anyway! And for those who contribute, we have a gift- a hand knit, and quite useful if I do say so myself, scarf from one of us here at the blog!! I will be posting pictures of the various colours in the morning, so keep a weather eye out! And if you want to give and not get, let me know and we will make sure that scarf gets into the hands of someone who needs it here in San Francisco.

Relief Is A Bicycle

Times are hard around the world these days. No one knows where the economy is going and jobs don't fall from the sky like they used to. But let's face it, if you are reading this blog post chances are you do not have to get water from a well you had to dig in the first place. My guess is you were able to go to school without difficulty as are your children. I bet malaria does not plague many people in your community. I could be wrong, but I bet not.

With that in mind I would like you to watch the following video from World Bicycle Relief.



It does not take much to help. It really does not. 15 readers donating $10 each gets one person a bicycle that could bring them, and their families out of a kind of grinding poverty that those of us with reliable internet connections can not imagine.

To further entice you to donate to this cause, I will have some kind of giveaway for those who can prove they have donated. I am not sure what it will be, but it will be bicycle related, probably made by me and sent to you free of charge (other than your generous donation to WBR). I will announce the giveaway by the end of the week, so keep a look out!

Who will be first?