1,000 New Connections
Nearly 1,000 people in our community have received free bike repairs since March thanks to the hard work of our community partners and volunteers and the support of our donors.
Over the last eight months, BBP volunteers have set out to 53 school yards and apartment complexes to serve kids where they are -- even making it as far west as Nampa, twice! Through those stops, 775 kids not only received bike repairs; but had the chance to work side by side with our volunteer mechanics to learn how to personally maintain their bikes with the hope being that they won't have to wait for us to visit that side of town the next time their bike breaks down.
In truth though, those were the easy repairs -- bikes that needed new parts swapped on or a quick brake adjustment. If there is one thing we have learned about kids it is that there is rarely only ever one reason they stopped riding their bike and that as long as the wheels continue to roll there is a kid in the neighborhood who will be trying to get a few more miles out of it.
This year we've seen bikes with no brakes, bikes with makeshift brakes (wire hangers make bad substitutes for brake cables!) bikes with shifting cables stuck in their chain, and more bikes with bottom brackets that refuse to turn than we can count.
And we are proud to say that all of those kids still received free bike repairs this year. Whenever our volunteers encounter a bike that is too hammered to repair in the field they direct that kid to our shop where volunteers make the repair for free. This year, that allowed 120 more kids who were in need of extensive bike repairs to get rolling again.
It isn't only kids who need dependable bikes however and we want to highlight the incredible work of our small team of volunteers who assist at our adult stops. Twice a month, BBP volunteers offer free bike repairs to individuals experiencing homelessness at CATCH in Downtown Boise. The repairs they take on are every bit as extensive as the kids ones we route to the shop - only instead of getting to do them from the comfort of a workbench and bike stand our volunteers take them on along an asphalt strip beneath an overpass.
We have watched that crew clean motor oil off of bike chains, hammer bends out of rims with two-by-fours, and reverse engineer hundreds of temporary "fixes" (more makeshift brakes!) as they repaired another 85 bikes for some of the members of our community most reliant on their bikes for transportation.
At the end of all that work is 1,000 people who didn't have the tools needed to sustain their bikes who got to be introduced to and an incredible community of people willing to teach them a new skill and invite them along for the ride that is the Boise Bicycle Project.
That is 1,000 more riders added to our ranks as we work to further our mission to make bicycles accessible and sustainable to all!
