November 9, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Two evenings a week in downtown Baltimore, as many as 30 aspiring bicycle enthusiasts busily tighten screws and inflate tires on their newly refurbished rides. They are college students, neighborhood teenagers, middle-age commuters tired of taking the bus, and other people the Velocipede Bike Project wants to introduce to “bike culture.”
Velocipede wants to turn Baltimore into a biker’s town, citing the environmental, social, and health benefits of biking. But it’s no easy task, says Beth Wacks, a bicycle-shop worker who two years ago helped start the group, which is seeking charity status from the Internal Revenue Service.
“There are lots of people who want to bike but don’t know how to work on their bikes, or they’re scared and don’t understand how bikes work, or who need bikes but can’t afford them,” she says.
The organization’s headquarters, a former auto-repair shop, holds a trove of donated or salvaged bicycle parts, and the tools and expertise to build them into usable bikes. Participants can claim a stripped-down frame to build a bike from scratch, or fix up their own old clunker.
Velocipede, which also holds one-day workshops to teach basic maintenance, operates as a co-op: It asks only for a donation of $33 or three hours of volunteer time, and members get a month’s access to the workshop’s tools, parts, and advice. “We’re really into working with people,” says Ms. Wacks. “If they don’t have time or money, we’ll work something out with them so that they can get a bike.”
At her day job, Ms. Wacks says, she is stunned at how expensive simple bicycle repairs are, with costs way above what many people without cars can afford. And even those trying to save money with secondhand bikes can rack up high bills at a retail shop, she says.
“I know a lot of people who buy a bike at a thrift store and bring it into the shop, and pay $10 for the bike but it will be a $200 repair in order to get it up and running,” she says. “Whereas if they brought it in here, they could find used parts and put it all together and make a bike for a lot cheaper.”
Here, Koala Largess, a Velocipede Bike Project member, tunes up her bicycle.
