It’s not too often a small bike shop is able to make an impact on an international tournament like the Commonwealth Games.
That’s just what’s happened in Glasgow though after independent store Bilsland Cycles loaned the entire Malawian cycling team a range of bikes for use throughout the competition.
The deal came about after Team Malawi brought their bikes to the store to get serviced and owner Neil Bilsland noticed that the bikes – which were intended for both track and road competition – would not be up to the task.
“Our major concern was that they’d travelled all this way and their equipment would fail them”
Bilsland and his team fixed up the country’s bikes as best they could, but when he realised that they couldn’t get them into acceptable shape, he agreed to give the entire team the use of bikes from his store for the length of the games.
“Our major concern was that they’d travelled all this way to the ‘friendly games’ and their equipment would fail them,” said Bilsland.
“Although we did fix their bikes, after a few days we thought, ‘we could really help Malawi out a little bit more here’, so we’ve provided them with bikes to use in the time trial and the road race.”
Good on you Neil. Lets hope the Malawians bring some medals back now to be hung in the store.
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