LexRides

[willard]

I have been living in Oaxaca City, in Southern Mexico all summer and met some people who have been building tons of bike machines. They are really practical here since many areas don't have access to electricity and there are still daily tasks that involve manual labor.

Here is a link to a video they made about the collective:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2091717/video_cacita/

You may have to skip in the video to find all the bike machines because the video is about the collective as a whole.

They have water pumps, corn grinders, bench grinders for working with metal, drill presses, and of course; blenders.

The most innovative thing they came up with was adding weight (concrete) to the wheel so that the centrifical force does most of the work once you get the machine going.

[selfpropelled]

MayaPedal in central Gautemala is also creating and distributing some great bicimaquinas. It is a fantastic place to volunteer if you need to drop south for a few weeks.

Bike powered ice cream churn coming soon....