Paul‘s brother Dan is really into tinkering with mountain bikes (and road bikes too, pretty much anything with two wheels he can get his hands on) and he recently told me about a “Bike Church” operating in downtown Philly. Apparently the place is run out of St. Mary’s Church on UPenn’s campus and has free shop space for working on bikes. They even sell used bikes and bike parts from donated rigs. Dan has built a couple bikes there and says they really have some interesting classes and activities going on.
I’m sure there are plenty of other cycling-related non-profits out there and unfortunately my discussion about cycling volunteer opportunities fell flat on the singletracks forums. One that comes to mind is the Yellow Bike program in cities like Austin where people fix up bikes and leave them for urbanites to use for one-way commuting. There are also non-profits set up to refurbish old kids bikes and distribute them to needy children. I would love to see something similar to Girls on the Run for introducing kids to positive lifestyles through mountain biking (though I imagine the liabilitywaivers for a project like this would be massive).
I’m opening up this post (despite the threat of spam bots) to hear about any mountain bike related non-profits or volunteer organizations you’re a part of. Feel free to share any ideas for ways mountain bikers can give back to the community.
