These bikes are manufactured and distributed by World Bicycle Relief, and while their model of charity is far from perfect (read here for an article with more info and cool background on African bike culture), the design itself is really intriguing.
For sure it’s a heavy-ass bike, but if you live somewhere relatively flat and don’t need to go very fast (aka an urban downtown area), I can imagine that this thing might be an incredibly useful bike.
Wow that is such interesting insight, thank you for sharing! They just came out with a really interesting new model called the Buffalo Utility S2 that has 2 separate chains and is supposed to be designed for hills that the original Buffalo doesn’t do great on.
That’s a cool looking bike (the one from your childhood). What kind of bike do you ride now?