Thursday, April 17, 2008
Bike Co-op strives to make bicycles available
Shop gives residents a place to learn bike maintenance, operation
by Maya T. Prabhu | Staff Writer
Christopher Anderson⁄The Gazette Mount Rainier Bike Co-op board member Bea Trickett (left) of Brentwood helps volunteer Timmy Park of Mount Rainier dismantle a bike at an open house April 10 in Mount Rainier.
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When P.J. Park was a student at Oberlin College in Ohio, he was a member of a bicycle co-op that allowed him to learn simple bicycle mechanics and maintenance.
‘‘I really enjoyed the concept and I knew that wherever I moved I wanted to have something like that around,” he said.
So when he moved back to Mount Rainier after graduating in 2004, Park began the process of creating the Mount Rainier Bike Co-op though a partnership with the city. He opened the co-op in October 2005.
‘‘The mayor [Malinda Miles] is really into having things for kids to do,” he said. ‘‘So I fleshed out my ideas and presented it to the council, and they agreed to help us out. The main goal of the co-op is to provide a space where people can learn how to maintain their bikes ... and to provide activities for children.”
The co-op is run out of a city-owned garage in an alley behind the Mount Rainier Library. The city does not charge the co-op rent and takes care of utilities.
The city also gives the co-op a budget of $1,500 per year to purchase tools, parts and helmets. The money is included in the city’s budget each year.
‘‘It was a great project that came to us. We thought it would be good thing for the youths to do,” Miles said. ‘‘It has become a whole lot more than that. It has turned into one of our most attractive non-profit activities in the city. It even earned us an award from the Maryland Municipal League in 2006.”
Each year, the MML picks projects they think should be duplicated in other municipalities, Miles said. In 2006, the co-op received the Medium City Award for Excellence.
‘‘And now, other cities all over the country are trying to duplicate it,” she said.
Barbara Klieforth, who has been a member of the co-op since it started, said the mayor and City Council have focused on bringing activities to the Mount Rainier and the co-op is another example of that effort.
‘‘There are a lot of kids with nothing to do after school,” she said. ‘‘[The co-op] is a service of the town of Mount Rainier started to make bikes more accessible and available to people, especially kids.”
The co-op offers bike mechanics classes for all ages, summer programs and an earn-a-bike program where members complete a mechanics class and refurbish two bikes — one that is donated to the co-op and the second for them to keep.
‘‘All of the bikes we work on are donated,” said co-op member Bea Trickett of Brentwood. ‘‘We also have a partnership with the [Mount Rainier] police department where if a bike hasn’t been claimed for a while they release it to us and we rebuild it.”
Trickett said they acquire between six and 12 bikes every month.
Members are asked to pay a one-time donation of $15 for Mount Rainier residents and $20 for non-residents. Youth under age 18 can join free. Members are asked to volunteer at the co-op, participate in a trail clean-up, assist in chaperoning a ride for children or participate with the group in an activity like National Night Out or Mount Rainier Day. There are about 30 members now with about 10 consistent volunteers.
Klieforth said she had worked on bikes for years and was happy to help Park get the co-op up and running.
‘‘I want to try to get people to see the beauty of bikes and get them on bikes,” she said.
Park said he is looking for a new location for the co-op since the building will eventually be demolished to build a new library and community center. A timeline for the construction of the new library has not been set because the city is still taking proposals from developers. Currently the garage they operate out of is about 200- to 300-square feet, and members often do most of their work in the driveway in front of the garage.
‘‘We’re hoping to find another space, hopefully in the gateway district,” he said. ‘‘Possibly the basement of a church, a storefront or a warehouse [could be used]. Basically the bigger the space the better.”
Trickett said there used to be another community-run bike shop in Washington, D.C., but it eventually closed. Chain Reaction was open from 2001 to the summer of 2007.
‘‘I would like to see another community bike shop in the area, but we don’t have any plans to expand right now,” she said.
Members of the co-op spent much of last week doing some spring cleaning, with the hope of attracting some new members. The co-op is open four days a week, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, 2 to 5 p.m. Sundays and 6:30 to 9 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays. However, Trickett urged anyone interested in visiting the co-op to schedule an appointment.
‘‘We’d love to have a large and skilled enough volunteer base so we could be open two more days a week,” she said.
To learn more about the Mount Rainier Bike Co-op, visit www.mrbikecoop.com.
E-mail Maya T. Prabhu at mprabhu@gazette.net.
