ReBike Blog

If James Brown is the Father of Soul, then Dave Schweidenback is the father of bicycle donation programs for the developing world. Schweidenback says Pedals 4 Progress, the non-profit he founded in 1991, is about more than supplying people with bikes.

Dave Schweidenback

“It’s about giving people the ability to earn a living,” he says. “In every country, we teach nationals to employ themselves and be entrepreneurial. Most people have an increase in income the first week they get a bike.”

The idea behind Pedals 4 Progress quickly caught on and soon, Schweidenback was receiving calls from interested volunteers across the country. Rather than setting up warehouses around the country to collect, package and ship bikes, Schweidenback published his business plan and watched the number of similar non-profits proliferate around the world. He estimates there are about 75 organizations today around the world using a model similar to his.

A former Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, Schweidenback today spends a lot of time teaching business classes to people in Nicaragua, Uganda, Eastern Europe, and other countries.

“We use bicycles as the commodity, which provides income as well as provides people with a means of transportation.”

Bike shop set up with help from Pedals 4 Progress

Hundreds of volunteers organize collections for Pedals 4 Progress, mostly in New England. Last year, there were about 100. Schweidenback notes that bicycle donations fell a bit last year, along with the global sales of new bikes.

But, he says, despite a few recessions over the years, Pedals 4 Progress continues to roll on. “The success of P4P is the result of the efforts of thousands of individuals over the years who have bothered to care,” he says.

The next Pedals for Progress used bike collection sponsored by the Branchburg Rotary Club is Sept. 11 in Somerville, NJ. Bikes can be dropped off from 9 a.m. to noon at the Branchburg Municipal Building, 1077 Route 202 north, Somerville, NJ.

Or make a donation online.

Some people rescue dogs. Billy Taylor rescues bicycles. “We save as many as we can,” he says of his mobile vintage bicycle shop called Re-Cycle Art Aspen.

Taylor, a former homebuilder from Washington, D.C., started out refurbishing vintage bikes as a hobby after moving to the resort town of Aspen, Colorado. But when he started getting more and more requests from friends to turn their rusty bikes into sparkling townies, he decided to formalize the operation.

Vintage yellow bike from Re-Cycle Art Aspen

For him, that meant going to the Aspen Farmer’s Market, which is known for being a tough organization to break into. In a town known as much for the arts as the stellar scenery, Taylor’s artful bicycles made the cut.

“It’s cool to watch people approach,” he says, referring to his double-wide, overflowing booth at the market.

Colorful townies at the Aspen Farmers Market

At any given time, he can have 150 bikes between his home workshop and his storage area. During the winter months, he sells more bikes through his website. Taylor says he gets his bikes through many avenues, including the dump.

“They heap the bikes into a pile, and bring in a bulldozer he says,” adding that most of the time, bicycles at the landfill end up as scrap metal.

This summer we’ve been working hard to keep up with all the bike chain coming our way from bike shops around the country. But on some of those hot days, with our shop being so close to many good swimming holes in the Columbia River Gorge, we can’t resist cutting out of work a little early to take a swim.

On a recent tubing expedition down a local river, it occurred to us that, other than bike chain, bike inner tubes have to be one of the biggest byproducts of the bicycling industry. So we did a little research and found lots of cool companies making products from used inner tubes.

Whether you are a bike shop owner looking to divert more waste from landfills or a bicycle enthusiast looking to earn style points, we think you’ll dig these companies.

Cycle Dog's inner tubes-turned-dog collars.

Cycle Dog in Portland, Oregon makes dog leashes and collars out of used inner tubes that it collects from local bike shops. If you’re in the Portland area, find out which stores collect inner tubes for Lanette Fidrych, owner of Cycle Dog.

Handmade saddle bags made in Boise

ReRideBags makes belts and saddle bags made from used inner tubes. Based in Boise, ReRideBags is very active in the community and is committed to getting other local businesses to think “green.”

PalePink's crafty and chic journal

Being a writer, my personal favorite is the journal made of recycled inner tubes. Handmade by PalePink and sold through Etsy, these journals are bomb-proof and beautiful.

And another Etsy merchant, Lost and Found Objects,

Fancy inner tube necklace

gets big points for creativity and social responsibility for this necklace made from inner tubes. 20% of the sales from the necklace goes to arts programming at an Indiana non-profit that offers free arts programs, a bicycle recycling program, a food bank and more.

As always, Resource Revival, is accepting used bike chain, transforming it into everything from bottle openers to clocks to magnets. Browse our store.

To start off this post, we’re sharing a cool video from Derailer Bicycle Collective in Denver.

Chances are, if you are a socially conscious cyclist, then you likely went with mostly A answers. And it also means you likely know where to find the nearest community bike shop in your town. Unlike typical retail bike shops, community bike shops—often called “collectives”—are all about filling the streets with self-reliant bike mechanics who can not only fix a flat on the fly but are committing to keeping old bikes and bike parts in use.

Of course, these bike shops are community-run, so they become social hubs for cyclists as well, often hosting rad events such as The Bike Oven’s (LA) Spoke n Art gallery ride this Saturday, Aug. 14.

According to the Bicycle Organization Organization Project and the Bike Collective Network Directory, a community bike shop meets the following criteria:

• Non-profit bicycle organizations
• Bike shops that are accessible to people without money
• Shops that have an educational focus, teaching others how to fix bikes
• Shops that are volunteer run
• Organizations that ship bikes to communities suffering from first world colonialism & its effects
• Shops that provide free or low-cost services to the community
• Organizations that recycle bicycles and parts

From Tasmania to Torino to Toledo, the world is well-stocked with community bicycle shops. (If you happen to live in Portland or Chicago, you have 4 to choose from in that city alone.) A typical community bike shop has all the tools and spare parts you need to work on your bike. They usually offer community repair nights often led by volunteers.

Community Cycling Center in Portland is a rebicycler with Resource Revival.

Community bike shops are heaven on earth for bargain and treasure hunters. They divert thousands of pounds of materials from the landfill, sending used and battered bike chains to cool companies such as Resource Revival, or tubes to creative artists making everything from inner tube belts to wallets.

Interested in starting a community bike shop in your town? Once a useful tool for connecting community bicycle shops, the Bicycle Organization Organization Project’s Bicycle Collective Start Kit. The organization’s Wiki page appears to be a bit outdated yet still full of great information, volunteer manuals, and more.

A brief search in Google Groups yielded many online forums for individual community bike shops, which are likely more than happen to share their experiences.

Share you own experiences! Comment on this post for all to see.

The Tour de Fat, New Belgium Brewing’s famous bicycle-themed carnival is rolling through 13 western cities once again this summer promoting the positive impacts of this non-petroleum-based mode of transit.

The 2010 New Belgium Cruiser goes to 13 lucky winners willing to give up their cars.

Aside from giving people a really good excuse to dress up, decorate their bikes, and enjoy one of summer’s best attributes (refreshing ales), the Tour de Fat reminds participants and spectators alike how liberating it can be to ditch one’s car.

It actually goes so far to give away a pimped-out commuter bike to one lucky person in each city willing to donate their car to a charity and commit to bicycle-only transit for a year.

So how does a brewer get into the business of throwing a traveling street carnival?

Testing an art bike at the Tour de Fat. Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons

“We are a brewery founded on a bike ride through Belgium so bikes have always been a tremendous part of our culture,” says Bryan Simpson, a spokesperson from New Belgium.

“In 2000, we decided we wanted to give something back to the cycling community so we created the Tour de Fat as a philanthropic traveling bike festival. The money raised through beer and merchandise sales benefits local bike non-profits.”

Over the last 10 years, Tour de Fat has raised almost $1.5 million for bike advocacy and issues—and had A LOT of fun doing it. Tour de Fat is known to make stops along the way to hang out with bicycle advocacy groups and businesses. During one stop through Portland, they stopped at Resource Revival to pick up the festival’s Folly Tower, which became a community work of art for festival attendees.

Resource Revival Interview from Graham Bergh on Vimeo.

Like many of you reading this blog, New Belgium Brewing is committed to recycling—at the Tour de Fat and in all operations. The company averages a 94% waste stream diversion rate at every event, so nearly everything is composted or recycled.

The Tour de Fat stage is run soley (no pun intended) on solar power. Photo courtesy bikejuju.com.

The festival use a solar-powered stage. Beyond the Tour de Fat, New Belgium’s Team Wonderbike program encourage people to bike as often as they can and pledge their miles. To date, almost 22,000 members who have pledged to offset 15-million driver miles per year.

The Tour de Fat has is barely halfway through its summer/fall tour. It’s taking this weekend off and will be rolling into Portland Saturday, Aug. 14. Check out photos and more on their Facebook page.

It’s a question that must get asked 1,000 times a day around the world. For Brian Drayton, founder of Richmond SPOKES, a youth training program empowering youth to design, plan, market and execute entrepreneurial business ideas, the metaphor could not have been more appropriate.

A social worker, environmental educator, and avid cyclist, Drayton sees bicycling as more than a means to simply get around. The organization he founded in February 2009 has helped numerous young entrepreneurs receive on-the-job skills training, generate income, and adopt more active lifestyles—not to mention create products and services that make their community a better place.

Valet Bike Parking is becoming the norm in the East Bay. Photo courtesy Streetsblog San Francisco

Show up at a bicycle-friendly event in Richmond—a city of about 100,00o in San Francisco’s East Bay region—and you’ll likely see Valet Bike Parking courtesy of Richmond SPOKES. (These folks are busy—check out their calendar.)

And while the organization does not have its own bicycle repair shop yet, its mobile “Fixins” repair shop travels around the city to farmers markets, cafes, and other popular spots to provide repairs—often on a sliding scale so all can afford it.

It is currently raising money to lease a retail space that would serve as a hub from which it can run its programs as well as start an organic food cafe. It would be managed and staffed by Richmond youth trained in SPOKES’  programs. Drayton is eying a space near a proposed transit “village,” which is currently a BART (Bay Area Rural Transit) and Amtrak stop.

His long-term plan is to raise enough money to purchase 300 bikes, which would be provided to Richmond youth who need a means of transportation to get to work. The bikes would be presented to their future owners “fully disassembled,” Drayton says. After the kids learn how to put their bikes together, they would have to take an urban bike survival class and a safety clinic. In return for their bikes, program participants would agree to take part in a health study for five years, so Richmond SPOKES and its partners can measure the aggregated affects of increasing mobility among youth in Richmond.

It’s a dream that Drayton believes could become a reality given all the funding opportunities and interest in the health, environmental and economic benefits of bicycling. “I’ve been involved in community bike programs for 20 years and this is an amazingly hot time,” Drayton says.

Where to find Richmond SPOKES:

1.) If you happen to live in Richmond, you can make a reservation with the Fixins mobile repair clinic.

2.) Hosting an event in Richmond where you might want valet bike parking? Fill out this online form.

3.) Check out their Facebook page.

A growing number of coffee roasters are realizing that if they invest in the farmers growing their beans, the payoffs for all are savory. Stumptown Coffee Roasters, based in Portland, Oregon, is one roaster leading the way when it comes to reinvesting in coffee suppliers around the globe. Its Direct Trade program ensures long-term relationships are cultivated face-to-face between the company’s owners and the farmers in the field.

Karaba Cooperative in Rwanda is at an altitude of 5000 – 6500 feet.

It was during a trip to Rwanda that Duane Sorenson of Stumptown Coffee Roasters learned that the coffee farmers at the Karaba Cooperative needed a sustainable means of transporting heavy bags of coffee beans.

That’s how Bikes to Rwanda was born. Four years later, the nonprofit organization—with the help of countless partners and donations—has deployed numerous “Coffee Bikes,” to the Karaba Cooperative.

The Coffee Bike, designed and developed by Project Rwanda with the help of Tom Ritchey and Ritchey Logic, has many unique characteristics, but perhaps most impressive is that they can support loads of up to 50 kilograms, have easy gearing, and are “remarkably light given how robust the bikes,” according to Bikes to Rwanda executive director Brian Gilmore.

The Coffee Bike can hold up to 50 kilograms and serves multiple purposes in "off-word" hours.

The best coffee is grown at elevation, he notes, where—even if the farmers could afford them—the roads are not suitable for most cars. This is a place where bikes are more practical than cars in almost every way.

Like many other successful bike donation programs, Bikes to Rwanda, has been able to expand because of the many used bicycle tools and parts that have been donated to support the bike shops in Rwanda.

“There are so many specific parts on bikes that the tools a resident of rural Rwandan villages would have access to, just simply wouldn’t cut it when it came to being able to reliably repair the coffee bikes,” Gilmore says.

This week, Resource Revival headlined Gorge Green Drinks in its hometown of Mosier, Oregon, where a big crowd gathered to learn about bicycle-related businesses and to learn about alternative transportation issues in the Columbia River Gorge.

Chris Branch, Resource Revival’s production manager, set up a popular key chain and bottle opener station so Green Drinks attendees of all ages could get a feel for what goes on behind the scenes at this cool company.

When they weren’t checking out the Senkai Motors electric, solar-powered bicycle or getting bike maintenance tips from Craig at Mountain View Cycles, folks were enjoying local brews at The Thirsty Woman. Once home to the YWCA, this 450-square-foot bar is a cool re-use project in and of itself. (Fans of building re-use should check out the Building Materials Reuse Association.)

For those who have not checked out one of the hundreds of Green Drinks events around the globe, this informal networking event typically features businesses who are solving environmental and social issues through their business or nonprofit.

A photographer, bookbinder and fused glass artist, John Sweet is known in the Bend, Oregon art scene for his artistic talents. But the bike shop owners in town know John more for his scavenging abilities than his artistic flare.

Bike-inspired fused art glass by John Sweet

An avid cyclist, John finds inspiration for many of his fused glass pieces in both the landscapes he cycles through and the discarded bike parts he comes across in bike shop recycling bins, garage sales and more. He usually uses found objects, such as bike hubs, to display his fused glass pieces.

Spending most of his career in the construction industry, John has no formal art training. “I try to have fun with it,” he says.

John’s not alone in his lust for used bike parts—the rebike movement is growing strong, especially among artists in bike-friendly cities such as Bend. A town of about 80,000, Bend has created 21 roundabouts and three new pathway bridges; 85 percent of arterials have bike lanes; and the city recently installed a new European-style raised bike lane. It received a Silver rating from the League of American Bicyclists. It’s also home to Commute Options for central, a three-county effort to reduce reliance on the automobile.

We’d love to hear about bicycle-inspired artists and organizations in your town. Send us an email or comment below!

Can you imagine a better combo than a mobile library and bike repair shop? Books On Wheels brings free books and free bicycle repair to low-income communities in its hometown of Richmond, Virginia. Even better: Since it’s a mobile non-profit, Books on Wheels can take its operation on the road.

Books on Wheels Spring Tour 2009

If I saw the big blue Books On Wheels bus rolling down my street, I’d flag it down and convince the mayor to let it stay a while. We all know the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

The same holds true for bikes of course. Who wants to ride a bike that has sketchy brakes or skips gears every 10 seconds? Even more importantly, how is one to rely on commuting by bike if they don’t know how to fix a flat or make other essential repairs?

That’s where Books On Wheels steps in. In 2008, its fearless leaders—Ward Tefft and Shelley Briggs—set out on a multi-month tour, beginning in Richmond and traveling as far as Austin, Texas, to provide basic bike repair skills to hundreds of kids. Within three years, Teft and Briggs opened Books, Bikes and Beyond, a thrift store in Richmond that accepts donations for Books on Wheels. They recently launched a campaign to raise $10,000 to provide 10,000 new or gently used books to low-income families.

There are countless organizations that accept used books, used bikes and used bike parts, but if you live anywhere close to Richmond, consider donating cash or (bicycle) clunkers to this very cool organization. For those bike parts that are no longer usable—such as spent bike chains or cassettes—consider supporting a rebicycle artist, such as one of the students enrolled in a BICAS art class in Tucson, or a rebicycle manufacturer such as Resource Revival.

Bikes, like so many other things, often get tossed to the curb or stashed in the garage the moment they break down. I’m a fan of any organization working to keep bicycles on the streets rather than in landfills. Know of other innovative bicyclers in the U.S. and beyond? Send us an email.