This year, the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, presented by the Environmental Resource Center and the Elephant's Perch, included a film and speaker that hadn't been scheduled in the festival's original program.
As attendees meandered into the nexStage Theatre in Ketchum for the festival, a film about bikes in Rwanda played on the screen. When the film ended, the film's presenter, Tom Ritchey, took the stage and told his unusual and heartwarming tale about bikes and biking in Rwanda.
For those in the cycle world, Ritchey is a name synonymous with mountain-biking history and bike parts. Since the age of 14, Ritchey's lifetime commitment to making cycling the best and most efficient sport possible has led him to taking his business and passion toward helping Rwanda.
"Africa is changing," Ritchey said in front of the festival audience, after several hours of mountain bike riding from Baker Creek to Ketchum. "It is at a crossroad and in 20 years, it will be different."
Three years ago, Ritchey went to Rwanda with just a bicycle and the need for a life-changing experience.
"In the first 24 hours I was there, the amount of self-confrontation I experienced blew me away," Ritchey said. "Rwanda is a broken, beaten-down country and shouldn't be there. Lots of bad things have happened there, but the people are resilient and capable."
Only one out of 40 Rwandans can afford a 40-plus-year-old, broken-down, jury-rigged, single-speed steel bike. To own one of these bikes is a luxury and a status symbol. Most bikes in Rwanda are made of wood.
"On the roads of Rwanda, 90 percent of the people are walking and sometimes pushing 400 pounds," Ritchey said. "There is no transportation system. I realized quickly if they could get bikes at a new level of technology, bikes could be a tool, not a toy."
Ritchey and friends started Project Rwanda, which has partnered with micro-finance organizations to provide rural Rwandans with specially designed bicycles to use in their businesses. Rwanda has as many as 500,000 small-holder coffee producers, the principal generators of cash for rural Rwanda. Ritchey designed a bicycle called the "Coffee Bike" for coffee farmers—a low-maintenance bike with inexpensive components and a long wheelbase with a large rack to transport loads of 100 kilograms or more. Interested coffee farm families can obtain micro loans through coffee cooperatives to purchase the Coffee Bikes, which cost between $100 and $200.
Ritchey donates the Coffee Bikes through the micro-loan program.
Farm families that are members of a coffee cooperative can enter a three-year contract to pay back the loan. In addition, the Coffee Bike production will be brought to the cooperative and processed separately from other coffee and will be sold at premium prices to participating American companies. There are more than 2,000 Coffee Bikes in use.
In addition to the Coffee Bike, Project Rwanda includes a side project called Team Rwanda. Team Rwanda is a marketing tool for the non-profit organization and is a privately organized national bike team, led by Jock Boyer, the first American to race the Tour de France and winner of the Race Across America in 2006. Boyer moved to Rwanda full-time to train and travel with the race team.
In addition, Project Rwanda produces the annual Wooden Bike Classic, a multi-day bike festival designed to attract tourism and cycling to Rwanda, as well as promote eco-tourism.
"It is the most fulfilling thing I have ever done, and I see the results," Ritchey said. "In the last three years there has been a huge amount of change in Rwanda. There is so much good going on, and I want to be a part of it with my tools and skills for bicycles."
For details on Project Rwanda visit projectrwanda.org.
Wooden bikes in rural Rwanda were the norm until Project Rwanda introduced the green-and-yellow Coffee Bike. Photo by
