Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays' and Bikes Without Borders

Country:

Canada

Organization:

Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays

Project Description:

Sacred Rides is one of Canada's leading mountain bike adventure operators, operating what they cal community-based mountain bike holidays in Canada and Latin America. They have a stringent social and environmental responsibility mandate (called Responsible Riding) - they use only local guides and suppliers, and donate a percentage of each tour to local projects. In addition they have their own non-profit organization called Bikes Without Borders, that uses bicycle-based solutions to community issues.

Tanya is nominating this project because:

While on a recent scouting trip to Guatemala with Sacred Rides, I got to experience firsthand their commitment to sustainable tourism. While on the trip, we visited no less than 3 community projects - 2 GVI schools and an incredible organization called MayaPedal - and spent time getting to know the locals and the organizations. Our tour leader took a percentage of the revenues raised by the tour and ended up spending several hundred dollars on school supplies, which were then donated to one of the schools. Later, owner Mike Brcic informed me that Bikes Without Borders would begin a partnership with Mayapedal, supplying them with a shipment of used bikes from North America (Mayapedal supplies used bikes to communities where distances to/from places like schools and crops are great, and also builds really cool pedal-powered machines like water pumps and smoothie-makers). I went down to Guatemala for a mountain bike trip, but I came back with so much more. I really felt that Sacred Rides was trying to leave a positive contribution in their wake and enrich the communities where we visited. That's why I'm nominating them!