Are Bikes Permaculture?

I have to admit some ignorance here. Even worse, my ignorance was born of smug indifference. There are many new words thrown around that are conjunctions of two real words. It can be frustrating to the point where you block them all out as background noise. Permaculture is a mash-up word you hear on a regular basis. I heard it repeated often by people I respect, and the concepts included in the conversation were the type I identify with. I decided it was time to take a second look. If you click the link, you can take a look yourself.

[youtube vUr4uPe9WBk]

Rather than try to sum up the definition here, I'll just say I was surprised to find how coherent and well developed an idea it really is. I found it hard to find the solid central pillar of the concept through the context of conversation or from the available educational offerings. After a little research, I think I finally get it. Not sure why it took me so long to simply look-it-up.

So back to my original question; are bikes part of the permaculture picture? Bicycles have been applied on a relatively large scale as part of international aid programs. Here's a great example of application of appropriate technology to support a local economy. It's cheap, you can fix it yourself, and you don't need to import a polluting, highly refined, non-renewable fuel to make it work. Here's a good list of projects I recently pulled from the January issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News-

World Bicycle Relief

Ecotruk

Extracycle

Worldbike

One of the most interesting quotes in this cluster of articles was from an organizer named Stephen Wolff who has projects in Zambia and Burkina Faso.

"I believe that the free bicycle model is not sustainable and that the long term interests of the recipients are met best through the mutual exchange of resources."

If bike aid programs are dumping lots of bikes and failing to share the tools and information needed to set up bike shops cannot be considered a localized and mutual exchange of resources, perhaps they are not permaculture? Also, why would anyone assign value to a trades-person's skills if they can get it replaced for free by an international aid organization? Reportedly, many of the donated used bikes delivered to developing nations end up unused and in rusty piles.
That brings me to why the bike industry is not supporting a sustainable culture. It's cheaper to engineer, provide materials, manufacture, and transport a bike part from the other side of the planet than it is to fix or replace it locally. How can we more effectively integrate the bicycle into the permaculture model? Can we? Should we?