Bicycle Portraits Needs Your Help

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Kevin

Bicycle Portraits is a group consisting of South Africans Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler. The two men have set out to create a three-part book during their two-year journey around South Africa. They’ve taken over 500 portraits in pursuit of their goal to depict South Africa’s commuter culture, though the two quickly discovered that the project would grow to become much broader, turning “into a portrait of a nation through the bicycles that they own and ride every day – revealing all manner of social, class, historical and cultural nuances never imagined.”

The best 165 portraits and stories will be published in the three-book series, although the duo is currently searching for funding for an initial printing run. They are currently soliciting donations on Kickstarter, a popular funding platform for creative projects. The pair hopes to use the books’ proceeds to help the underprivileged cycling community in South Africa.

For a taste of what the book will offer, check out their video:


To support the project, check out their Kickstarter profile:

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  • http://www.bicycleportraits.co.za Nic

    Thanks for your post about the project! We definitely need all the kickstarting we can get.

    Just a note to clear something up – we are not really aiming to ask for ‘donations’, rather most of the kickstarter funds are in the form of book orders for a special pre-release price. For example for $80 you will receive all three of the books.

    • http://www.socaltrailriders.org Tom

      I have some awesome mountain bike photos from SoCal. I’ll send them to you.

  • http://www.bicycleportraits.co.za Stan Engelbrecht

    Hey Guys! Thanks so much for doing a post about our project! I just want to point something out – we’re not asking for donations, we are in fact taking pre-orders for the series of books… so, if someone ‘pledges’ $80 for instance that will be receiving the set of 3 BICYCLE PORTRAITS books!

    Have a look at http://www.bicycleportraits.co.za/kickstarter for more information.

    There are pledges and reward ranging from $7 to $5000 – a pledge of $40 will get you one of the 3 books, and a pledge of $250 will get you all 3 books, and your name will appear on a ‘Thank You’ page in the book, and you will receive an 8′ x 12′ signed photographic print!

    We don’t want to mislead people by letting them think that they are merely giving us money – they get some great in return, and the knowledge that the project would never be able to happen without them!

    Thanks again guys! Nice website!

    - Stan & Nic.