Osprey was introduced to 88Bikes when we first entered the bike industry with our Osprey Hydraulics™ line of hydration packs. Their model is simple yet incredibly powerful: provide bikes — often the first — to young people living in challenging environments across the planet. In places like Cambodia, Uganda and Peru the addition of a bicycle to a young person’s life almost always is a life-changing event.

It’s undeniably the season of giving, which can equate to added stress over finding the right thing to give the ones you love. The good news is, if you want to embrace the spirit of the season and gift up something meaningful, it’s easy. Through the non-profit 88bikes, you can donate a bike to a child in the name of your special someone and know that you’re quite simply helping to pedal change on a global level.

Want a little more background? Here’s how 88bikes gift-giving works, directly via the non-profit’s site itself:

Bike contributions are $88 each, which will be used to purchase one bike for one child for the project. Your name will be added to the website, and we ask that you send a photo of yourself to us by email so that we can print it out and give it to the child who receives your bike. We’ll take a picture of the child holding your photo, with her new bike, and send this back to you. 88bikes is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and your donations are fully tax deductable. 88bikes does not maintain a staff or an office, so that 100% of your contributions go towards our projects.

You can choose to donate a specific dollar amount, one bike or multiple bikes by going here. You can even print your own gift certificate to personalize and wrap up for the holidays yourself. However you choose to donate, 100 percent of your donation goes to the cause. What’s more, “Each child is given his or her bike in person by the founders or an 88bikes volunteer, on behalf of the individual Sponsor who donated the bike. The child is also given a postcard with a photo of their Sponsor and a world map, indicating the Sponsor’s hometown. Photos and film of the project are made available to the Sponsors, and each Sponsor receives a thank-you letter with a photo of the child who received their bike.”

Adventure, Advocacy, Bikes Around the World, Non-profits, Pedaling Change 88bikes, donate, gift, pedal change

Everybody remembers his or her first bike. Mine was a blue Schwinn — traditional bars and a seat with a metallic blue paint.  In particular, I remember my first ride without training wheels. My father ran alongside me in an empty parking lot pushing and balancing me and then I was free — spinning away from my Dad, pedal, pedal, pedal — already worrying what to do when I came to a stop because the bike would now TIP OVER!! That bike saw many miles and many tip-overs. Over the years, it was shamed by my envy of Schwinn sting-rays only to rise proud again, converted to BMX style.

Osprey was introduced to 88Bikes when we first entered the bike industry with our Osprey Hydraulics™ line of hydration packs. Their model is simple yet incredibly powerful: provide bikes — often the first — to young people living in challenging environments across the planet. In places like Cambodia, Uganda and Peru the addition of a bicycle to a young person’s life almost always is a life-changing event.

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Advocacy, Non-profits, Osprey Life 88bikes, Navajo Nation

Photo courtesy 88Bikes

This summer, Osprey participated in 88Bikes’ Village project in our own backyard of Navajo Nation. The project focuses on small rural locations where bikes can have a major impact. We have long supported the incredible work of 88Bikes because we believe that bikes really can change the world.

To continue our support of 88Bikes, we will be selling our new Zealot 1o packs at Interbike next week. Packs are $35 with 100% of the proceeds going straight to getting more kids on bikes. If you’ll be at Interbike, please swing by the booth and pick up a pack and support 88Bikes!

Learn more about 88Bikes and how you can help, here.

Advocacy, Events, Non-profits 88bikes, human rights, product promotion

Photo courtesy of 88Bikes

Welcome to Pedaling Change! There’s a lot of good work being done in the world of bikes, to alternative transportation advocacy to international development. To highlight some of the great action that’s going on out there, once a month we’ll be profiling a non-profit in the bike world to look at just how they’re working to make positive change.

“You can go anywhere.”

Dedicated to providing bikes to young people in developing countries, 88Bikes is certainly built on the idea of empowerment. Remember the feeling you had the first time you successfully pedaled around by yourself? That sense of freedom? Imagine bringing that sense of freedom and exhilaration to communities that have been challenged by obstacels such as war, poverty, disease and conflict. You can imagine the joy that a bike can bring.

Another key component of 88Bikes is that the organization is focused on one-to-one philanthropy, empowering not only the recipient, but the donor as well. $88 covers the approximate cost of a bike in developing countries, and donors are not only asked to provide a photo of themselves to accompany their bike, but even encouraged to take part in volunteer trips to hand deliver bikes to the donation sites, making the donation process come full circle.

Founded only 4 years ago, 88Bikes has already a long list of accomplishments. They’ve delivered bikes to Peru, Cambodia, Mongolia and Uganda and they’re currently working on their 88Bikes Villages project which will reach out to children in rural locations. Over 700 bikes have been donated, and even after a quick look at some of the organization’s photos of smiling and laughing children on their new bikes, it’s easy to see why using sustainable transportation to empower youth is such a powerful thing.

We caught up with one of 88Bikes’ founders, Dan Austin, to learn a little more about the organization and the work they’re doing.

What have some of 88bikes’ biggest accomplishments over the last year been?

Getting bikes into the hands of kids who’ve been through really difficult challenges, in really rural areas, has been very fulfilling.  Kids who’ve survived slavery in rural India, Ghana, Nepal and elsewhere are now using bikes to help reconnect with some of the lost fragments of their childhood.  To see these heroic kids who’ve been through so much smile wide and take off on their new rides, that’s a good feeling.

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Non-profits, Pedaling Change 88bikes, development, international, international development, travel

Courtesy of 88bikes

Today we’re honored to feature this guest post by 88 Bikes Founder Dan Austin.

While galavanting through the hinterlands of Mongolia a couple of weeks ago, my brother Jared and I spotted an idyllic ger, set on a hillside, lit up in the sun.  We hiked through the stubbled grass and were met halfway up the hill by three teenage girls, a couple little kids and an old fellow who looked like he’d been squinting into the sun across these eternal fields for the better part of eighty years.  I asked him the question I always ask when traveling with 88bikes, but didn’t expect an answer.  I was shocked when, after our fixer translated my question, the nomad’s rutted face broke into a huge grin.

Tell me about your first bike.

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Advocacy, Guest post, Non-profits 88bikes, international, international development, Mongolia