How the Buffalo Bicycle Changes Lives

[Applause] this is the Buffalo and it is quite simply the most robust serviceable utilitarian and costeffective bike to ever exist and it's fascinating from the 13 gauge spokes to the 11 lb steel frame to the 1/2 in BMX chain to the luggage rack which has a capacity of 220 lb to the fact that every Fastener on the bike can be turned with a box wrench so you're going to want to stick around because we're going to learn today how a $165 bike can be so robust useful and [Music] life-changing so why does the Buffalo exist who is this for well if you're a field Medic in let's say rural Columbia I the Buffalo could allow you to see 88% more patience than you could on foot and if you're a farmer in Africa the Buffalo could help increase your income by up to 23% and if you're a student it can help increase attendance by up to 28% now you might say Seth yes those figures are not hard to believe but any bicycle could do that if you deliver bicycles to some place that doesn't have them everybody's going to be more productive we know that why the Buffalo well a bicycle doesn't help somebody if it'll only run for couple of months and then it's dead in the water when it breaks these communities don't have bike shops they don't have Parts they don't have the kinds of tools that we use to work on our bicycles and so World bicycle relief engineered a bike that was designed specifically to stay running in the most isolated communities on the planet right if you live in rural Zambia and your tires wear out you can't just order new ones on Amazon and so when these bicycles are deployed they include entire Supply chains complete with training programs so the communities are in can keep them running we'll talk more about that later but first let's get into the nuts and bolts of the [Music] Buffalo so yes serviceability is one of the main strengths of the Buffalo and so they made it so you can turn just about anything on it with a box wrench I mean technically one adjustable wrench could allow you to fix just about anything on the bike save for a few Choice items even the bottom bracket can be turned with an adjustable wrench or box wrench check out this crank set even on a really cheap bike this ball over here is recessed and so you can only get to it with a socket wrench or even a hex key on this it's out in the open so you can just turn it with any old wrench and then of course everything from the wheels to the stem to the handlebars to the headset they're held on with normal hexagonal bolts that you can turn with a wrench and yes it does have a threaded headset and quills them I always make fun of these because they're kind of relics from the Jurassic period but there are a lot of very good reasons that this bike has one first of all a quill stem is height adjustable with just one bolt there's no need for stack washers or pinch bolts or anything like that and if anything happens to this headset you're more likely to find replacement parts in developing countries threaded headsets are found on a lot of old bikes and so you could probably cannibalize one find one in a junkyard or even get replacement parts at a bike shop in the city here's another tool you probably won't need to maintain your Buffalo a chain wear indicator this is a seriously heavy 1/ in BMX chain I say BMX chain cuz that's the only type of bike I've seen these on it is so heavy that I don't know this chain ring probably doesn't wear out it wears in I know that makes some of you cringe but many of us spent our child hoods just running chains into the ground and the bike still goes just to give you a frame of reference for how heavy this chain is let's take a look at it next to an eagle chain a 12-speed samam eagle chain you can see the size is like double they use these on some mopeds and very likely you're not going to be needing a torque wrench on this bike because everything saved for the grips and saddle and a few Choice items are made of steel and not like chromal steel not the high-end stuff this is high tensil steel the whole way through it's very forgiving and so you can kind of overtighten stuff and just do it by feel and the bike's going to be fine but that makes it pretty heavy actually this bike is extremely heavy it's 55 lbs that's a lot like riding an XC bike uh while carrying an XC bike it's literally double the weight of a cross country bike it's insane and they could have made it lighter they could have made it lighter for the same price and it probably would have been just as strong but there's a reason for the heavy steel see Buffalo takes a lot of input from their users they get sent pictures of how people are using the bikes and what they've broken on the bikes how they've been fixing them and one thing that they found is a lot of people are welding things to the frames like foot pegs for carrying passengers and rack extensions for carrying more items and if you've ever used a stick welder you know that really thin steel tubing is kind of tricky you can fry it so they wanted a heavy steel frame compatible with the types of welders and electrodes that you would normally find in developing countries it's examples like that that lead me to believe that Buffalo might just be the most user Centric Bike Company in the whole world as I mentioned many people who ride these bikes are actually field testers and when they send feedback back to Buffalo they take it very seriously and rarely does it have to do with performance usually has to do with serviceability and Longevity this drivetrain also features steel crank arms and that's not that common but these can be bent back if they're damaged or you can even weld to them let's have a look at these wheels these are steel wheels with double walled rims that's for for strength and stiffness they're also not all that big 26 in 650b the smaller the wheel generally the stiffer it is it's also got really stiff spokes 13 gauge and these spoke nipples are not small you could probably turn them with an adjustable wrench when you have big spokes like that there's less of a chance they're going to get stripped out and there's less of a chance they're going to get damaged if something gets caught in the wheel and as we already established this bike is designed for carrying heavy loads and so you want really strong wheels and speaking from my own experience wheels are kind of vulnerable as a kid I wrecked Wheels all the time the spokes would get loose they'd get all wobbly just making the wheels as strong as possible is probably not a bad idea here we have a shraer valve and an inner tube inner tubes you can just patch over and over again and on the valve cap that comes with the Buffalo it actually has a valve core wrench built into it so you can service the valve and hopefully keep it running for a longer time and then there are the tires as you can imagine these are very heavy and puncture resistant they're made by Kanda for Buffalo these are proprietary now they're not made for shredding LOM Trails or anything like that they're made for dirt roads and gravel roads and so they just need to be wide they just need to have a good amount of volume and for a commuter bike they kind of do as I said the rims are really wide the tires are really wide I have them pumped way up but I bet you could air these down a little bit and get a much smoother ride over janky [Music] surfaces now down here at the Hub things get a little bit interesting they actually use chromal axles and so it's a higher quality steel than the rest of the bike axles are one of those things you don't want to have to Source or replace very often and so they make axles that are really strong and will last a long time continuing down at the Hub we have here a Servo brake it's kind of like a drum brake designed for bicycles you've probably never seen one of these if you're into road bikes and mountain bikes and gravel bikes you would normally see this on a commuter bike it is very very reliable it does not require a lot of service and it's weather resistant everything is contained inside of it and as you can see there's a very thick cable driving it uh I suspect you wouldn't have to replace that very often either now as I mentioned this bike has a coaster brake and it has a Servo breake now that's good for several reasons first of all there's redundancy you have a brake on the front and the back in case one of them isn't working second if you're carrying heavy loads you have more braking power and third neither of these brakes touch the actual surface of the rim they're both Hub brakes and that's really important because if these rims get a little bit out of whack and they're wobbly the brakes are still going to work just fine n the bike does have a number of accessories though yes the Buffalo has a bell that's pretty nice to have but also nice the fenders people are using these for transportation every day in all weather I was riding this in all sorts of places today and I didn't get anything on me these fenders work really well I'd say they're almost essential given what this bike is for but also there's a two-legged kickstand on my big dummy cargo bike I have a two-legged kickstand and it is essential when loading and unloading people and cargo and so of course there's one on the Buffalo it looks kind of flimsy but it seems to work with the rated capacity of the rack just fine it is made of steel it is not going anywhere also like any good kickstand of this kind as soon as you set the bike in motion the kickstand automatically goes down so you're not messing with it and your cargo you just get on the bike and ride [Music] away another interesting accessory this pump if you're going to have one tool to work on your own bike one tool it's going to have to be some kind of a floor pump this is small it appears to be inexpensive but it's not bad this bottom piece over here appears to be cast iron or something there's a lot of interesting things going on in this pump that to be honest I don't understand but I've used it and it's not [Music] bad that there is just about exactly what this is rated to so let's ride around with it oh I should have chosen someplace flat to do this it works this is insanity how am I going to get this down to the drive way they weren't kidding they said it was rated for 220 lb rated for 220 lb that means people are exceeding this regularly and they said they do these are some strong and resilient people I uh can barely keep this thing stable but it's not flexing I carried two toddlers in their bikes on my cargo bike which is rated for about that and it was kind of sketchy honestly this is I'm astonished and given that there are many photo and videos of the Buffalo carrying people and things without helmets some warm milk drinking soft sheltered individual has to always point out how dangerous that is and how they should have something guarding the spokes well guess what in a lot of parts of the world helmets are actually luxury items oh how am I going to get this thing off wow now one notable access accy that the Buffalo does not have is a place to put water bottles not only is there not a bottle cage there aren't even bosses to screw a bottle cage into they thought through everything on the buffalo very very hard everything is intentional why wouldn't it have a bottle cage I'm not entirely sure to be honest but my guess is that bottle cages take a special water bottle I'm pretty sure in developing countries they're not kind of choosing exactly what type of water bottle they're going to get they're not going on Amazon ordering a bike bottle cage specific water bottle they can just strap whatever it is they need to the rack now in this big heavy steel bike there are a few Choice items that are not steel as we mentioned the tires of course and then also the grips the grips are extremely UV stable these are made to be out in the sun in some of the hottest climates all day also the seat the seat they put more thought into than you might think because with it and the grips you have your bike stand for working on it even people who work on Buffalo bikes professionally will often turn them upside down to do repairs and so these take a lot of abuse from making contact with the ground they made them really strong and they made them really UV stable for being out in the sun for long periods of time yes there are trained Mechanics for Buffalo bikes for every 50 to 100 bikes distributed they train one field mechanic to help take care of them and they are trained from the spokes op and in many of these places it creates economic opportuni because now people are being more productive and they need their bikes running and now they's somebody who knows how to fix and service them they even have Buffalo branded bike shops that carry parts and accessories for Buffalo bikes there are 50 such locations in Africa which is good because there are not many bike shops outside of the Cities at these locations there are of course train mechanics it's kind of like uh the track store so I did ride the Buffalo quite a bit on some rough gravel roads and I'll tell you it's not a bad ride not only is it made of steel and steel normally does ride fairly well but it's made of a lot of Steel and so you don't really feel little vibrations you just feel big bumps see right over here there is a fallen tree and I'm going to have to lift this 55 lb monster over it but it does have a decent ride it absolutely does and on the dirt and gravel rose that it's designed for where it is most at home it really is good this is an aw road bike and I noticed something interesting I was not easy on this bike today I was loading it in and out of my truck I was driving it in the water I was hitting bumps I think I even popped it off a couple of jumps that aren't on video but the Bike Works just how it did when I took it out this morning I don't have to adjust anything unlike a $160 department store bike I would at least have to mess with the brakes or line up the wheel or something or the handlebars would move this thing is really solid because it's no frills there's nothing extra on this bike it's everything you need nothing you don't there's no suspension there's no flames or anything like that they just made the best most practical bike they could for the money so World bicycle relief is a nonprofit started by one of the co-founders of sham actually the likes of tre giant specialized Kenda and many others lent their expertise and resources to make this Mission possible but wbr is completely separate from all of those organizations actually they're all competitors now if you add ask me how to make anything better my answer is always bikes like how do we make this birthday cake better bikes to me bikes are just the answer to everything and so I'm really glad there's somebody out there trying to bring these to communities that need them most and that $165 that's delivered this bike is $165 delivered to the far reaches of the globe and so $1,650 the cost of an entry-level full suspension bike can put 10 of these bikes in people's hands create amazing economic opportunities for them and improve their lives drastically most people watching this video love bikes because they make us healthier happier they're fun and they bring us together but for some communities bikes transport school children Medics medical supplies clean drinking water and they create amazing economic opportunities for the people living there and that makes the Buffalo I'm being honest when I say this one of the most interesting bicycles I've ever reviewed and if the AI apocalypse renders all of us useless these might be the only bikes we're able to keep running I hope you enjoyed this deep dive on the Buffalo bike I hope you learned something and if you didn't I hope you at least found this video entertaining thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next [Music] time there

Channel: Berm Peak

Views: 506,143

Keywords: mtb, mountain bike, bike repair, biking, bike riding, bike tricks, bike trials, cycling, DIY, home improvement, outdoors, building

Id: QV88C5ZK0x0

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024