executive summary
Overview
A utility bicycle has the power to transform the life of extremely-low-income persons, especially those in rural areas of the developing world. Unfortunately, for a complex of reasons, conventional bicycles have remained persistently unattainable by the very persons who would most benefit from having them. The Simple Cycle Project aims to cut this Gordian knot.
Tools of Wealth Creation
When you bicycle, you travel at perhaps 4X walking speed, without expending any additional energy. A utility cycle can support 4X the weight of cargo that you might carry in your arms, on your back or balanced on your head. For those who have no other choice but to walk - especially the rural poor of developing nations - a cycle therefore represents as much as a 16X increase in personal transportation capability.
Well-designed kick-bikes can attain three-quarters the speed and daily range of the more complicated chain-drive units and can move roughly three times the cargo you might carry on your body, thus, a good utility kick-bike can offer the laden pedestrian a 9X increase in personal transportation capability.
For those persons who do not have two functioning legs, a well-designed handcycle with some carrying capacity represents the greatest capability-multiplier of all.
When using a utility cycle, benefit accrues whether you are:
- a woman investing valuable time and limited caloric energy in the transport of children;
- a man commuting to a physically demanding job;
- a student trekking long kilometers to school;
- a girl spending what should have been her school day hauling home heavy containers of water;
- a nurse visiting distant patients;
- a farmer transporting goods to market.
"Good reliable transportation resulting in a shorter commuting time is the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty" - Nathanial Hendren, Harvard economist
The Technical Challenge
We have exhaustively scrutinized the complex web of sticking points which prevent the availability of conventional bicycles in those regions which represent the greatest pent-up demand for them.
The radically simplified, fully-owner-buildable, constructed-of-native-materials Simple cycle is the outcome of our solution-oriented investigation and multi-decade development effort.
Simple cycles are functionally equivalent to ordinary bicycles. They weigh about the same, travel as fast, carry as much or more, and are just as reliable. Made of renewable wood and/or bamboo, they benefit from initial weather-proofing treatment and observant maintenance. The modular construction can be straightforwardly reconfigured for specialized needs and can be repaired and maintained for an infinite working lifespan. The highly adjustable unisex frames can be ridden by almost any member of a family or organization.
Modular frame construction allows the outfitting of any Simple cycle with owner-built components and homemade wooden wheels. Alternatively, the same frame can be outfitted with virtually any make and model of purchased conventional components and wire-spoked wheels, if such are available and affordable. The builder's circumstances dictate whether the frame and wheels will be bolted, screwed, nailed, lashed, or pegged-and-glued together.
Scale of the Need
Over the last decade in Africa (for example) about 300 thousand bicycles (almost all imported from Asia) were distributed each year. Meanwhile, the population of the continent has been increasing annually by approximately 34 million persons (statista.com).
This means that each year less than 1 out of every 100 Africans seeking a bicycle has been served by conventional manufacturing and distribution, a response of supply to demand that is disturbingly close to zero. This differential compounds yearly.
Today, a billion poor and extreme poor persons worldwide would be much better off financially if they could obtain bicycles, but remain those least able to acquire them.
Waiting for someone else far away to build and bring a cycle means that people grow old without ever enjoying the transformative benefits that a cycle could have brought to their lives.
A 'Simple' Solution
The Simple strategy enables the expedited arrival of very low-cost bicycles to the towns and villages of the developing world – anywhere that there is micro-scale lumber production, timber-bamboo harvest, or a supply of used wooden shipping pallets. These homegrown bicycles are made possible by a transfer of cycle-building technology in the form of software. Unlike the too-often-ineffectual distribution of manufactured-elsewhere bicycles, our online plans enable fabrication at the point of use.
Any local labor and material expenses will automatically be at parity with the owner-builder’s low local wages. Cashless barter is empowered. Retailer distribution is not needed for an owner-built cycle; there will be no ‘middleman’ inflating prices. Value equivalent to a conventional bicycle can be had for a fraction of the cash outlay.
Since all that we are distributing is digital information, this project can proliferate virally and grow exponentially.
The Simple cycle can be crafted one at a time by an individual working under a shade tree, wielding common hand tools and referencing clear pictorial plans. Alternatively, the same vehicle can be built in any level of volume by specializing teams, where appropriate.
Not required for the production of Simple cycles are the precision fixtures, tooling, power equipment, imported parts, consumables, gases, electricity, and infrastructure of the type needed for the manufacture of conventional metal-framed bikes.
Ultra-low-cost owner-buildability puts cycles quickly and directly into the hands of those who would most benefit from having them.
Many persons will have the motivation required to take on a simplified owner-building project; this is demonstrated by every owner-built chukudu freight cycle presently quadrupling the income of young men in the Congo basin. Motivation toward self-reliance exists widely; this is corroborated by every IKEA kit sold around the globe. Easily built and repaired wooden frames can maintain structural integrity in outdoor usage; this is demonstrated by each of the many thousands of half-wood/half-steel PET/Mobility Cart handcycles still serving after decades in the field.
Owner-building is the Key
As simple as they may appear to be, conventional metal-framed bikes are complex enough that they cannot be practicably owner-built. This impediment to acquisition therefore demands cash payments by the very poorest people to much-higher-income producers and shippers. The Simple Cycle’s owner-buildability approach obviates this pernicious equity imbalance.
The Simple Cycle architecture achieves owner-buildability with no loss of functionality. Its construction is fully forgiving of beginner error. Each and every module – if poorly made, damaged or worn out – can be disassembled by the owner and then ‘traced and replaced’, thus creating a vehicle with infinite lifespan. These modular frames can accept any available components, including homemade. Building with locally sourced indigenous materials avoids the very substantial costs and delays of international shipping.
Our modular architecture enables extreme simplification. As one example; we have replaced a costly ball-bearing headset and steel headtube (along with the precision reamers, facers, taps, presses and welders needed to fabricate and install this conventional construction) with nothing more than a bolt, a block of hardwood, and a discarded bottle cap – a durable and fully functional headset which a ten year old can build.
Specialized tools and any need for sophisticated woodworking techniques have been designed out. Most sawing is of straightforward ‘square’ 90-degree cuts. Most drilled holes are simply centered on the piece; few need plotting. Tolerances are extremely forgiving. The likelihood that builders might have only irregular ‘thick-and-thin’ rough-sawn lumber available to them has been anticipated and planned for. Building a Simple cycle frame requires no carpentry experience or joinery skills; at its most basic, layering together rectilinear dimension lumber is about as conceptually challenging as making a sandwich.
The Simple cycle looks the way it does, not because of aesthetic choice, but because it is an assemblage of deep solutions.
Beginner-buildability is its superpower.
Our Greatest Resource
The most overlooked and underutilized resource which could be applied to the provision of bicycles and handcycles is the manpower and womanpower embodied in the intended beneficiaries themselves. In the case of Simple Cycles, that workforce is over a billion persons strong. User-self-reliance has been a goal from this project’s very first day, and user-building is deeply integrated into both vehicle design and project structure.
What remains to empower recipients fully, is to create and provide a proven template – with every piece illustrated, every component tested, and buildability fully confirmed – along with the simple pictorial instructions they need to complete its fabrication.
In the near future, test rides and hands-on demonstrations which clearly show the functionality of Simple cycles will go a long way toward building local and expanding regional support for this self-help idea.
Organizations which have the means and desire to assist and accelerate our shared clientele’s building process, can very much help make these demonstrations. Your organization may also choose to subsidize and distribute Bike in a Bucket or Bike in a Shoebox building kits – compact containers of those pieces of bicycle hardware which are the most challenging to owner-fabricate or purchase in your organization’s region of operation.
Material Inputs
The Simple frame is built of a core of dimension lumber (rough-sawn or commercially planed), with exoskeleton members of board or bamboo. The 8 four-foot boards (needed for most models) can be harvested with minimal ecological impact from a managed woodlot of young small-diameter trees. Alternatively, a single used wooden shipping pallet in fair condition supplies boards sufficient to build a typical Simple cycle.
To quantify the effect of harvesting wood in volume sufficient to provide a community or region or country with cycles, see this page: I = P x A x T.
Pneumatic tires are the main bicycle parts that cannot be owner-built, though recycled car or truck rubber tire-tread layered on wooden wheel rims can serve as a rough replacement. Urethane-core flat-proof tires are accommodated by the “split-rim” feature of Simple owner-built wooden wheels. Utilizing established importation capabilities of partner organizations can be one way to ease supply bottlenecks for tires, either ordinary pneumatic or foam-core.
Research and Development
I – Rod Miner – am designer of the Simple Cycle architecture. Elements of the Simple concept emerged from decades of cycle design and manufacturing carried out by my father – Earl Miner – and myself. Over 100,000 cycles of our design are presently operating in the field worldwide (see the PET, Lightfoot, and TRAG pages).
Simple’s modular bicycle architecture was awarded a US patent in 2021, and this method of building is now thoroughly proven. I built the prototypes from locally produced rough-sawn lumber, using little more than a handsaw and drill. I have ridden these cycles on multi-day treks. They have hauled substantial loads along mud tracks, gravel roads and dirt paths. They have made their merry way along graded and paved bike paths. They have proven capable of every task for which conventional welded-metal bikes and cargo cycles are used.
Though there remain details still being worked through, and although refinements will continue to emerge from ever-more-extensive real-world testing, the Simple Cycle Project is now ready to go to work on a grand scale. Today’s 700 million ‘extreme poor’ and some portion of the 3.5 billion ‘poor’ people worldwide have the need, motivation and capability to build these cycles. Over a billion of the world’s lowest-income people stand ready to benefit from this newly accessible transportation technology.
A financial analysis we made in 2024 strongly suggested that any organization seeking to facilitate the acquisition of bicycles would find that each dollar spent on Simple Cycle materials provides a substantially greater 'bang for the buck' than the importation of complete bikes. More people on bikes for the same investment of money.
Starting with the first posting online of Plans, the arrival of these tools of wealth creation and well-being at homes in the developing world will be better measured in days, rather than in decades.
Development Tasks Remaining
At this moment, I am the only individual working on The Simple Cycle Project; the “we” used in these pages acknowledges my departed father’s pioneering design work, the continuing support of my extended family, all the hard-working people who contributed to our ancestral cycle-building enterprises, and the early supporters of the present project.
The Simple Cycle Project is a public benefit enterprise. I have not to this point sought 501(c)(3) status and a board of directors, putting my time instead into product design and testing. My work with partner organizations can be – for now – simply contractual.
In 2026, I am continuing the refinement of the core bike and handcycle models. I will be ensuring that our wooden wheels are proving efficient and durable while remaining straightforwardly beginner-buildable. I will prototype fully-homemade hub and bottom-bracket assemblies. I will refine chainless drive options. I will itemize Bike in a Bucket and Bike in a Shoebox parts-and-tools kits to be used for larger-scale organizationally assisted building and distribution.
I am aiming to post the first sets of Plans in Q3, 2026. After the first several Plans are readied for downloading, I will become increasingly available for any requested consulting, workshops and training.
Funding Requirements
I have paid out-of-pocket almost all Project development costs over the last 4 years, assisted by several deeply appreciated financial contributions. My hours spent on this project have been entirely donated. Boot-strapping while underfunded has been slow, frustratingly so when I reflect on the urgency of the need.
Through the first half of 2026 my design-development hours will continue to be donated in-kind. Any and all other expenses of working with partners will need to be covered by the partnering entity.
Collaboration
If you would like to be a catalyst for the proliferation of wealth-building life-improving cycles in your region, or if you have a project in a developing nation that could be enhanced by producing utility bikes and/or adaptive cycles on-site, or if your organization has internal need for a cycle fleet with which to mobilize your health workers, educators, staff, or project beneficiaries – let’s talk.
- Rod Miner, Founder
The Simple Cycle Project is a public benefit enterprise.
We have no religious, ideological or political affiliations.