Jackton Achola runs a bread delivery service in Kenya. He gathers the loaves, places them into colourful pallets, and stacks them high, above his head, on the pannier of his Buffalo bike . He then secures the load down with two rubber cables, and pedals out across his community in Kisumu.
On one trip, Achola can distribute enough food for around 480 people. “I’ve done it for so many years,” he says. Recently, something has changed.
Achola is one of eight testers in his country who have been trialling World Bicycle Relief ’s (WBR) latest Buffalo model, equipped with its new AK2 system – a drivetrain with two chains. It’s a revolutionary concept, one that took two years to develop, and has been patented with the help of US parts manufacturer SRAM .
The idea, WBR’s Michael Kelly explains, came after comments from testers like Achola, who had been using the previous singlespeed Buffalo bike. “One of the pieces of feedback was the desire to add a gear to the bike when you’re riding under a heavy load,” Kelly explains. “That was sort of the dream behind it.”
The double-chain drivetrain is found on the Utility S2 Buffalo bike, the latest model of WBR’s flagship product. Since its launch in July, it has undergone thousands of miles of testing, and won design awards at bike shows. Now, it’s being rolled out into communities. Jackton Achola has been testing Buffalo bikes for more than a decade. “The philosophy of the Buffalo is that you […]
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