Introduction
Welcome to the Longlife Bike project! We'll share here the developments and steps forward to setup the Longlife Bike Project. First, here's an overview of our goal, current stage and how you can get involved.
The goal of the Longlife Bike Project is to create a bike that will be local, open & circular.
In Belgium, we have everything needed to produce bicycle locally: empty factories, raw materials and the required know-how. Producing bicycles locally will create local employment and shorten delivery delays. While the pandemic has boosted demand for bicycles, it also disrupted its manufacturing & supply chain.
We believe in a world where knowledge creates power for the many, not the few. All our work, including the bike design and instructions on how to build it yourself, will be published under a creative commons license.
Although cycling is the greenest mode of transportation, its production methods aren't. Most of the brands, especially the bigger ones, can be seen as industrial brands which produce en masse bikes in low-costs countries and then drop their products on the market without much involvement, bond or interaction with their end-users, the cyclists. If Europe wants to be climate-neutral by 2050, it is time we create bicycles that also respect the environment and the principles of the circular economy.
After two months of deep diving into the cycling industry, we've come to realize where we can really make a difference: empowering slow travellers on their journey towards sustainability and circularity. With Welcome To My Garden and its passionate community of +13.000 users, we're well on our way to making slow traveling the new normal.
During our two months of deep diving into the cycling industry, many doors in the cycling industry opened to us. We got the opportunity to meet many people who are pushing hard for more sustainability and circularity in the industry. You can read our learnings here.
Since we want to empower slow travellers on their journey towards sustainability and circularity, we decided to take a step back and reflect upon this question: why don't we simply start creating more value for our incredible Welcome To My Garden community?
That's why we've put our Longlife Bike project on hold for now and we're focusing on the further development of Welcome To My Garden.
If there's something you want to share or discuss with us, please drop us a message at [email protected]!
🚧 This wiki will always be under construction — if something is missing or wrong, please contact us at [email protected]; and we'll make sure to add or fix it. 🚧
You are welcome to contribute as well!
