- Welcome back to World Bicycle Relief Week
here on GCN, helping to change lives
through the power of bicycles.
Hopefully you've seen a couple of the recent
videos on GCN where we followed some locals
here in Zambia using Buffalo bikes,
and how important they are to their daily life.
Well, today we've been invited here
to the assembly plant to see exactly
how the Buffalo bikes are put together.
That's a heavy door, and I'm quite weak.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so if you come in here, this is the
World Bicycle Relief Buffalo bikes assembly room.
Has a core group of 10 people who put the
Buffalo bikes together, where they will then
be put into the various storerooms that we have,
over this side.
We thought we'd show you exactly how they
go about building the Buffalo bike,
from start to finish.
So we are going to start over here.
With Kelvin, he is the man who takes the bare frames
at the very start, and as you can see,
he puts the forks in and the headset
and the bearings, but he is also in charge
of putting the bottom bracket in,
the cranks on and also the pedals.
Once he's finished with that, he will then put it
over here and it'll be ready for a central part
which we will get on to a little bit later.
Now, over here is a man who has really the most
intricate job of all the people here,
making the Buffalo bikes.
This is Maben, as you can see, he is in charge
of making up the mud guards, or the fenders,
for those of you over in the US.
If you'd zoom in right now you would see
a load of very, very small bolts and pieces
to put those fenders together, and he's using,
as you see, a power drill to make sure
that everything is as tight as it should be
and doesn't rattle loose when it's getting
some rigorous use out in rural areas.
As I said, we will go on to these guys,
Evans and Judas in just a few moments' time,
but before we get to them, I want you to come over
to the back in here, because is this is where the wheels
are all made from scratch.
So there's a core group of four people here,
we have Wiggan, we have Pison, who's gonna
help me build a bike a little bit later on.
I've also got Joe and Dennis.
Now, the first two, Wiggan and Pison,
they are in charge of the spokes.
They will individually, for each of the 36 spokes,
into the front and rear hubs,
and when it goes over to Pison there in the corner,
he will feed them into the rim with
the nipples, etc. and at the end of that,
we have a wheel which looks like this.
So it looks like a wheel,
not much use on any bike, let alone a Buffalo bike.
So that is when they will go on to Joe,
and his partner in crime over here,
their job is to tension 'em up
and make sure the dish is central.
There's quite a lot of quality control
goes into each stage of the process as well.
And then finally, almost finally,
penultimately should I say, we head over
to where George is, just over here.
(tools whirring)
George is in charge of putting the tyre
and the inner tube and the wheel reflectors on.
These are all very important parts, obviously.
The tyre needs to be at exactly 60 psi.
That is what they have found to be the most durable.
They are special tyres, incidentally,
with a slightly different compound
which allows 'em to last a year or two,
as opposed to around three months
that you would get with rigorous use
with a normal compound.
So he'll make sure that the tyre is
correctly seated on here and completely okay
for the next person to use.
Then, all those separate parts, so the bit that Kelvin
starts, and then the fenders and the wheels
are completely built up.
They will come over to Judas and Evans.
Normally there's two of them based here
in the middle and they will put the whole lot together.
Now, those two are also in charge
of putting the handlebars and the stem together,
and also the grips.
They all come to these two central stations,
and by the time that Evans and Judas are finished,
we'll pretty much have a full Buffalo bike.
But there are two parts still missing.
So, the very final parts of the process
rest with this man, Uram.
Now, he has a very important job,
first he's got two parts to finish off first.
The bell, which is what he's doing now,
so people can hear when a rider is coming.
And he also does the chain guard
down at the bottom here.
But finally, Uram's job is quality control,
so he makes sure that everything is
absolutely perfect on these Buffalo bikes,
before he then agrees to put them
in the storage room which is just behind you.
(tools whirring)
I should probably let those guys crack on with their job.
But they have become incredibly efficient
in the years that they've been doing it
over here in Zambia, to the point where,
on a good day and if they are needed to,
they can apparently build 100 Buffalo bikes,
which really is quite incredible
when you consider there's 36 spokes,
and that means 200 wheels.
Very spectacular, indeed.
Now, a lot of these guys have been working
here for a few years.
It's a very nice place for a Zambian to work,
because they get medical provision and care,
but they also, if they are required to do overtime,
actually get paid overtime, which is a rarity
from what we understand over here.
Now, I understand that Pison has got
a little job for me to do.
So we probably should find out what that is.
(upbeat music)
Right, so now, we have been looking at
the professionals doing their job,
very efficiently over there in the assembly room.
They decided that I should also have a go
at assembling a Buffalo bike myself,
so hope you got some patience out there.
(upbeat music)
It's a process which they make look very easy
and which I don't.
I blame the lack of power tools.
Or perhaps lack of power of any sort.
Yeah, still got a quarter turn on it. (laughing)
(upbeat music)
I'm happy with that, it's quite straight.
Anyway, whilst I'm struggling to turn some screws,
let's have another look at how these bikes
are actually used.
A couple of days ago, we went to Distribution Day,
a quite overwhelming experience.
Now, at the end of it, we met Tisilla.
We joined her as she, for the first time,
rode the seven kilometres home,
instead of walking.
Tisilla is the youngest of eight in her family.
None of her siblings finished their education,
the distance to school just proved too much.
And Tisilla herself, in fact, she stopped
a couple of years ago, too.
However, a friend convinced her to continue
her studies, and it was this determination
which earned her a Buffalo bike.
She's now got a much better chance of finishing school,
and has ambitions of eventually becoming a nurse.
Here we are.
That was tough.
Poor Tisilla's got a really big climb up to her house,
but that was her maiden voyage
on a newly donated Buffalo bike.
I think she enjoyed it.
These are the differences that your donations
are making in the real world.
What time do you--
- Oh five.
- Oh five, you start walking.
And now with this, what time do you think you will leave?
- 6:20.
- 6:20, an hour and 20 difference.
Having seen it firsthand, it's really quite emotional.
For us, a bike is a means of being sociable,
healthy, a means of being competitive, or adventurous.
For them, it's a means to a better life.
Help us this year to raise as much as possible,
by clicking on the link on your screen right now,
and donating whatever you can.
- We can try it.
- And we're done.
We're gonna ride it, thank you very much, Pison.
Well, I think I've decreased their productivity
in the day, having used Pison for the best part
of an hour but we're there, we've got a bike.
Still holding together so far.
I did offer Pison a backy, but he didn't
want to get on for some reason.
All right, well all that leaves us to say is
a huge thank you to World Bicycle Relief,
inviting us here to the assembly plant
to find out how all these Buffalo bikes are made.
Hopefully, somebody will get the use of this one,
at some point after it's gone through some
quite severe quality control.
We are, as you very well know, trying to raise
as much money as we possibly can
for World Bicycle Relief again this year,
so that we can get as many of these bikes
to the people that need them, 'cause as the tag line goes,
bicycles really do make a huge difference
to people's lives over here.
So if you'd like to see details of how you can donate
to World Bicycle Relief you can find that
in the description just down below this video.
And if we raise enough money, won't be me shaving
my head this year, but instead Matt and Si
are going to ride pretty much naked
across central London, so that's worthwhile
in itself, I think you have to say.
So follow that link and please do donate generously
as you did in 2016.
Now, if you would like to see exactly
how these bikes are used over here in Zambia,
you can click through to the following two videos,
just down here, we follow a student
and just down here, a local farmer.