Maya Petal is a Guatemalan NGO that takes old bikes and converts them into ‘bike machines’ or ‘bicimáquinas’ in Spanish.

The bicimáquinas they build use no electricity. Instead, they are individually designed to perform a certain task, like grind corn, pump water, depulp coffee beans, shell nuts, blend food and more.

Maya Pedal is always working on new designs and they even offer instructions for building some of their models online. 

These machines make a world of difference to local small businesses, which don’t need to rely on or pay for undependable electricity, and are relieved of difficult and time consuming manual labor.

In the video below, produced by Worldwide Cycling Atlas (a group dedicated to supporting cycling initiatives), Carlos Enrique Marroquin, the head of Maya Pedal, says: “Everyday more people believe in bicimáquinas…the result speaks for itself.” Agreed.

Thanks to Treehugger for this!

If you want to read about a Toronto company who is utilizing pedal power you can read more about ChocoSol here.

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