DENVER — To lovers of life on two wheels in Denver, a bicycle shop in the Lincoln Park neighborhood looks a lot like Santa’s workshop.
It’s a beehive of activity as cyclists ride up to find an inexpensive cycle, refurbished parts as mechanics eagerly tune up bikes and get them back out the door again.
Bikes Together isn’t an ordinary bike shop. It’s a metro 501(c)(3) non profit that exists not only to work on and sell bikes, but to advocate for the benefits of riding and encourage Denverites who might not have thought riding was for them.
“I’ve seen folks come into the shop who apologize for being here or feel like they’re not welcome, they’ll spend some time in the shop and several weeks later they’ll be wrenching on their own bike or teaching somebody else something that they learned the previous week. That to me is very special,” said Abby Bohannan, Executive Director Bikes Together. “We work with folks from all walks of life I think because we reduce barriers to bicycle access.”
Bikes Together is inclusive and flexible in its approach to customers and the community.
“They can get a bike for whatever they can afford and then they can check it in with our service department, so we have a team of professional mechanics that will diagnose bike issues and then fix them for a set price, similar to your average bike shop,” said Bohannan.
Outside the shop are plenty of reworked and refurbished bikes for adults and kids priced well below what can be found at big box retailers.
“There’s a suggested price and it generally says the condition the bike is in and it says what’s wrong with them,” said Bohannan. “The kids' bikes are sold between $25 and $75 but nobody is turned away due to lack of funds. If somebody wants to give their kid a bike, they have $5, we’ll work with them. We want to get more people on bikes, we want people to love their bikes.”
Someone can purchase one of these bikes then make a learner repair appointment to gain the skills and independence of working on their own ride.
“We also have kids bikes, we have all different kinds of accessories. The kids bikes are sold between $25 and $75 but nobody is turned away due to lack of funds. If somebody wants to give their kid a bike, they have $5, we’ll work with them – we want to get more people on bikes – we want people to love their bikes.”
Inside the shop are tons of bike parts made new again for anyone looking for an affordable option to replace a worn chain, busted tire or deflated tube.
“These are tubes that have been pulled out of bikes that are donated and they are oftentimes patched by volunteers and tested to make sure they are good quality,” added Bohannan. “These are sold for 3-dollars instead of the average price for a new tube is anywhere between 8 and 15 dollars, but it’s pay what you can, so if somebody comes in, they have a popped tire, they’re wanting to get to where they need to go – they have a dollar - we’ll work with them.”
Reducing barriers and opening up the health benefits of cycling are two reasons why Bikes Together jumped at the chance to help Denver Public School kids, who might never get to experience the joys of biking with their classmates.
Just before Christmas, Denver7 introduced the concept of Brown Bike Bus, a rolling band of happy Brown International Academy students who meet at Sloan’s Lake Park and ride together around 10 blocks to start the school day.
Click and donate so more kids can get bikes
Allen Cowgill, an avid cyclist who helps organize Brown Bike Bus.
“It’s pretty much an opportunity for kids to bike in a group to school. We’ve heard from parents and students that one of the things that prevents them from biking is safety. So what we’ve done is created an experience of safety in numbers, so kids can bike in a big group and experience biking to school and get to do the joy of biking,” said Cowgill. “It’s pretty much like a moving party going down the street before school.”
In December, Denver7 rode along with the students, parents and volunteers who monthly make the ride happen.
Amid the mix of laughs, upbeat music and bike bells there was a sense that the only thing missing was the Brown International Academy students who didn’t have the chance to ride.
“About 20% of our kids today are free and reduced lunch and don't have access to a bicycle, or don't own a bicycle,” shared Cowgill. “So something that we're working on and we're struggling with is how do we get bicycles to those kids.”
Just before Christmas, Denver7 launched a Denver7 Gives campaign to raise funds to purchase bikes and safety gear so other students could join Brown Bike Bus.
Thanks to our generous audience, $1,800 was raised and we dropped off the check to Bikes Together which turned around 10 refurbished bikes for the next Brown Bike Bus.
“With the partnership with the Brown Bike Bus we are refurbishing a bunch of kids bikes so that any kid who wants to participate in the Brown Bike Bus can do so,” said Bohannan. “The donations from the Denver7 Gives campaign is really helping with refurbishing those bikes and making sure that they have new parts. That they're safe to ride, that they’ve been gone through by a professional mechanic and that they’re going to last for a long time.”
Cowgill, who picked up the bikes, hopes the school can get more bikes so other Brown International Academy students will have the same opportunities to experience the positive physical and mental health benefits of bicycling.
“Not all the kids at Brown have access to bikes so we’re really excited to be partnering with Bikes Together and Denver7 Gives as Denver7 viewers have been so generous and we’re able to get some bikes for kids at Brown that didn’t have an opportunity to have bikes before, they couldn’t afford bikes,” said Cowgill. “This is going to be a really great chance to get them on bikes not only for the bike bus, but to be able to enjoy bikes recreationally and go around their neighborhood, whatever they want to do with it.”
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Help buy bikes for kids who don't have one at Brown International Academy
The bikes that will soon roll with the Brown Bike Bus not only see new life with happy kids but the refurbished rides get a second chance instead of ending up in a landfill.
“We recycle a ton of bikes. In total this past year we recycled, redistributed, repurposed or gave away almost 60,000 pounds of bikes and bike parts,” said Bohannan.
Bikes Together is located at 1060 Osage Street in Denver and along with bikes, parts and servicing, the nonprofit offers classes including ones that teach gender equality mechanics.
“It’s open for women, trans folks, nonbinary folks, anybody who wants to have a safe space to learn about bike mechanics,” said Bohannan. “We love cultivating a vibrant, equitable bike community.”
Bohannan, who is from Denver, dreams of a city where people can ride their bikes safely, cultivating a joy and community centered around bicycles.
“The bike community can look very homogeneous and so there’s sort of this perception that… if you don’t look a certain way, you haven’t ridden a sort of bike, if you don’t have a certain income, if you’re a certain gender, a certain race, you’re not welcome,” said Bohannan.
She wants to remind the community that Bikes Together is a welcoming and affirming place for anyone no matter their experience riding.
“We see a lot of folks who come into the shop who maybe had an experience where they enter a bike shop, their bike is broken, they give it to a mechanic, some sort of mysterious thing happens and $500 later their bike is fixed,” said Bohannan. “Everything we do is very educational. We have folks who come in who have questions about their bike and instead of taking their bike from them, or taking the tools away from them, we’ll give them the tools and explain to them what’s wrong with their bike and kind of how to diagnose things – and build a sense of agency over making their own repairs.”
Denver7 Gives is still raising money to help more students at Brown International Academy get a bike, not only to ride in the Brown Bike Bus but to give kids a chance to experience the joy, freedom and exercise that comes with biking on their own.
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To learn more about Bikes Together, the services it offers and how to support the nonprofit, visit bikestogether.org.
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