"You don’t choose your passions – they choose you."

With their Hase Pino tandem bike, on the 15^th October of 2013 they took a ferry from Portsmouth to Santander and started a journey of a whopping 4,000 km from Spain to Gambia.

Hoping to arrive before Christmas, these 50 year-old adventurers made their way along the pilgrim route of the Via de la Plata to Seville, then on to Tarifa on the Spanish southern coast, before crossing over to Morocco and continuing along the coastline to the Western Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal. Fuelled by veggie meals, they passed through places like Rabat, Essaouira, Dakhla, Nouadibhou, Nouakchott, Saint-Louis and finally Banjul, capital of The Gambia. All this while competing with fierce African truck-drivers and helped by forgiving desert winds.

Their goal was to reach the town of Medina Salaam, a quiet place 45km away from the buzz of the Gambian capital. There they would help Re~Cycle by training mechanics to refurbish the bicycles shipped from the UK, to later be sold or given away by the local Gambian charity WYCE (Wonder Years Centre of Excellence).In this way they helped achieve the NGOs objective of providing education and healthcare for the village of Medina Salaam, while providing economical transport for people, jobs for mechanics and funding to run the NGO.

We were very impressed by the efforts of two small charities working together to create good things in Africa. We’re here to train mechanics, fix up bikes, get our hands dirty and generally enjoy the experience of a simple and friendly life in Medina Salaam

write the cyclists on their travel blog, The Spoke & Words. "And it’s worked out pretty much as planned. There’s a blue sky canopy over our days, shade under mango trees and on the ground there’s the steady motion of life within the WYCE compound."

In their collaboration with WYCE, they let the gears of creativity work towards the creation of a new type of bike – the first (known) cargo bike of The Gambia! 

The bicycle is an essential transport tool in The Gambia. Cars and vans are too expensive for the vast majority and bicycles are often adapted with wide rear racks to carry loads such as palms and water containers.

explains Chris. Using parts of incomplete bikes, they were able to improve them in strength, length, versatility and, most important of all, safety. “Cargo bikes appear to be appropriate technology in The Gambia” he concludes, stating that the WYCE bike could be used to distribute bread for the new bakery the NGO is starting.