Mechanics Make A Bike Work

Bikes from DICK'S 2013 Trade In Trade Up Sale

Bikes for the World receives over 10,000 bikes every year as donations that we in turn mostly send overseas. We often hear, "how do you get so many bikes??" The truth is, they are right here in our backyard. Last year we collected and shipped about 13,500 bikes with 4,000+ coming from a national partnership with DICK'S Sporting Goods.

We are happy to announce a second annual Trade In-Trade Up promotion with DICK'S is bringing us over 5,000 bikes this spring. But that still means our local community groups and bike shops are turning in 10,000 bikes collected mostly in the DC area.

Some of these bikes are taken in for repairs and the owners decide for one reason or another to donate them rather than fix them. Many donors cite the greatness of our program and their ability to buy another bike as their motive.

Others find out how expensive bike repairs in America can be and opt to simply buy another bike. For example a safety check including minor adjustments will run a patron an average of $50, while a thorough tune up could cost as much as $200 not including the price of any parts that need to be replaced.

Depending on the type of bike, model, and component system, this is really not that expensive. And if a bike is kept properly maintained and cleaned it will run great for years. But for some bike owners looking across the aisle at a brand new bike price of $200-350 the choice is simple...especially with the added incentive of donating an old bike to change someone's life overseas.

Courtesy Village Bicycle Project

The cost of labor here in America is one of the reasons we ship our bikes 'as is' to our partners overseas. But it's really a minor reason. Because of the way we ship our bikes, so tightly together and partially disassembled, bike mechanics are an integral part of the receiving organization.

Many of our partners train local people to be bike mechanics.They, then, reassemble our bikes and maintain them for years for their new owners, creating jobs and increasing incomes for their own families. This supports one of our main missions, generating skilled employment.

Courtesy St. Louis Bicycle Works

However, every now and again, we find an amazing program doing great things right here in our own American communities. Meet the men of Marion, who are working in a bike mechanics program established by Bikes for the World's newest U.S. partner, St. Louis Bicycle Works. These inmates were trained by St. Louis Bicycle Works and work on bikes instead of working out in the gym or watching TV.

The bikes they refurbish are going back into the program in St. Louis where they support an Earn-a-Bike program with area youth or they are shipped overseas to similar projects we support. The inmates have, to date, given back thousands of bikes to this program and overall describe the program as very rewarding. Continue reading about this 3 year old project in Illinois.

Courtesy St. Louis Bicycle Works

June 1, 2013 Bikes for the World sent Nick Colombo to St. Louis to help Bicycle Works load and ship their very first container. For the past 5-6 years Bicycle Works has been sending bikes to our sister organization Working Bikes in Chicago who has been shipping containers for them.

The container packed this weekend as an Eagle scout project will be heading to our partner CESTA in El Salvador. In just under 6 hours, with the help of 25 volunteers, they packed about 500 bikes in this trailer under the expert guidance of Nick. Included in the shipment are about 20 bikes from the Marion Federal Penitentiary program.

This relationship is another step toward one of our current priorities at Bikes for the World which is to increase our national presence. Congratulations to everyone involved...including one Eagle candidate, Ben O'Brien, who contacted us last year to do his Eagle project with Bikes for the World. Working out of Kentucky, we were able to connect Ben with Bicycle Works and the bikes he collected were also included in this recent shipment.

Featured Volunteer: Nick Hein

2013 National Day of Service

Every year Bikes for the World likes to participate in Martin Luther King Day festivities by starting the year out with a container loading of bikes for one of our overseas partners. 2013 was no different, except given the added Inauguration event on Monday, we chose to load over the weekend instead. For this National Day of Service over two dozen volunteers came out to King Farm to help us load our first container of the year, destination: FINCA Costa Rica.

Jennifer Privell and Nick delivering bikes from Positive Spin

Then event also gave us the opportunity to say goodbye to one of our--oh, let's just say our BIGGEST WVA--supporters Nick Hein. Nick has been the Director of Morgantown WVA's Positive Spin. He is, however, as sandals in wintertime may suggest, moving on to the West Coast to pursue other interests.

Nick and Positive Spin have supported Bikes for the World for years, and before that donated bikes to our sister organization in Chicago, Working Bikes. Nick Hein can remember our Nick Colombo when he was at Working Bikes before coming to BfW.

Positive Spin offers classes in bicycle maintenance and repair, mentors teens in bicycle repair (and earning a bike through their efforts), solicits donations of unwanted bicycles, and reconditions and sells used bikes to the community at low prices. Morgantown is home to the University of West Virginia, and students, faculty, and other staff comprise a large part of the Positive Spin volunteer base and market for reconditioned bikes.

A common problem of community bike projects such as Positive Spin is that their donors and volunteers produce more bikes and spare parts than can be used (although the bikes tend to be of department-store quality and marginal condition, requiring too much skilled labor and time to make usable).

Nick Hein delivers bikes from Positive Spin to BfW in 2011

Beginning in 2008 (or so), Positive Spin has donated surplus bikes and spare parts meeting Bikes for the World standards. To get them from Morgantown to our storage site in Rockville MD, we have relied on a combination of transport arrangements -- volunteers with the Cumberland (MD) Rotary Club, and other various BfW volunteers with trucks (and generous hearts). Most recently, BfW shared the costs of truck rental to bring 80+ bikes and many boxes of parts (all loaded by Nick and Jennifer) to this National Day of Service loading.

We want to say thank you and good luck to Nick Hein for all his support over the years. We also want to recognize his valuable contribution to the cycling community of Morgantown. We hope that Positive Spin will continue to thrive in this community even after Nick moves on to explore other adventures out west.

   

The Numbers

4191
The numbers are in even though not all of the bikes are yet! I'm talking about the recent partnership with Dick's Sporting Goods(DSG) and Bikes for the World. DSG recently offered a promotion to their customers that involved trading in an old bike for a new one, or rather money off a new one.

And I bet you aren't really asking what they did with the old ones since you are reading this here! Yes, indeed, all of those traded in bikes have been trickling, okay trucking, into Lorton the last two weeks. THOUSANDS of bikes! We are thrilled to have such and amazing partner like DSG.

481
That's how many stores participated in the promotion yielding us those 4,191 bikes. We will be getting our last shipment sometime next week. Then comes the task of shipping them all back out again!Hats off to the staff at DSG who really helped us out by watching our processing video and prepping the bikes BfW style,  just like our Collection Managers and volunteers. This saved us tons of time and themselves tons of space as they also packed the trailers to be sent from their distribution centers from Atlanta to the Mid West.

12
There were twelve 53' containers in all, two of them shared with our sister organization Working Bikes in Chicago, who also ships to some of our same partners overseas. Each of these trucks held somewhere close to 350-400 bikes.

Consider the fact that we typically load about 500 bikes inside a 40' container! We did see a few damaged wheels coming in from DSG possibly from the movement in the back of the trailer.

500+
Our rows are packed a lot tighter when we ship overseas. Sometimes you may wonder if this damages the derailleurs the way we push on them. We have gotten some feedback that gears need tweaked on the other side, obviously (I'm pretty sure I have a bike or two in my shed that need tweaked right now too!) but overall, the damage that could potentially be done if they have the room to rock with the ocean is much worse.

Once we off loaded all the incoming bikes our volunteers counted and confirmed the totals. We then took on the bigger task of going over all the bikes.

Craig Annear hands down a bike off an earlier DSG delivery

2 AWESOME!
How was the quality of the bikes donated you ask? Can you say AWESOME?! Only about 2 per 500 weren't up to our standards to ship overseas. That means out of 4,191 bikes, 4,180 of them will be shipped in tact overseas. That's incredible! Anything not up to our standards is stripped for usable parts and those parts are then shipped with the bikes.

Bikes for the World has a reputation across the globe of sending not only quality bikes but also the right kind of bike for the local terrain. We listen to our International Partners and give them what they need. More often than not this is a sturdier, fatter tired bike, good for hauling goods over unpaved roads. This is exactly what we received from DSG more often than not; about 80-90% of the bikes donated fit this description. 

Don't take my word for it. See it for yourself. Check out the bikes, see them fill the space, count them if you can!