The girl was demure and hesitant while requesting in a low tone, "will it be possible for you help me get a second hand cycle? I have three small kids and I walk at least three kilometres to work" This was in March just before the first Covid related lockdown. The idea of this website had not even occurred.
When the wave of immigrants starting to hit the road began, once again the need for cycles came to fore as countless stories of individuals and families took to arduous 1000 km plus journeys on foot or cycle. What came out was heart wrenching tales of people trying to buy cycles at exorbitant prices, a just get back home.
Third trigger came when the Atlas cycles announced closing down all its plants for want of ironically buyers for their cycles. Some thing had gone wrong somewhere. The irony of thousands of cycles rotting in basements of households while equally thousands of users wanting to acquire these is what triggered us to start this website and also the initiative of donation of cycles. We wanted to be the bridge between households and companies wanting to give away and the user segment with which we are familiar.
The result, barely within two weeks of launching the website, the first donation was done on 4th September 2020, a used BSA ladies cycle to the girl who had requested for a cycle in March 2020. The original donor is an insurance professional who had hardly used her cycle for few months and later had let it lying around for a few years. The cycle was acquired by us and we worked on the cycle and got it going in good condition and gave it the girl, starting for ourselves an useful journey into the unknown.