Bicycle recyclers empower riders
source: http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/10/08/bicycle-recyclers-empower-riders/
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Programs in New York and elsewhere train young mechanics and provide ‘beater’ bikes.
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[Excerpt] A year ago, Natalie Feliciano couldn’t tell the difference between a derailleur and a bottom bracket. A bike was a thing, made up of other shiny things, all of which churned together in some strange, magical concert. Sometimes she’d walk the streets of her East Village neighborhood and see rusty frames jammed into trash cans. “I’d think, you know, what a waste,” she grimaces. “All that garbage for someone else to clean up. But I never knew how much went into a bike.”
These days, her outlook is considerably more refined. On a warm fall afternoon here, standing in the cluttered back room of Recycle-a-Bicycle’s Manhattan store, Ms. Feliciano absentmindedly runs a greasy chain through her fingers and holds forth expertly on all things two-wheeled. She talks about the sudden passion in New York for fixed-gear bikes – once popular only among reckless, bombastic couriers – and her own stable of rides, which includes a bicycle she repaired on her own time. “I like knowing I can help my friends with their bikes. I like to know that I can be there,” she says. “And I like knowing how they work. How everything fits together.”
The nuts-and-bolts approach is something Recycle-a-Bicycle has always done particularly well. The organization was founded in 1999 with a straightforward mandate: Repair abused, remaindered, broken, or worn bikes and funnel them back to consumers. At the time, New Yorkers were wary, says Lisa Stein, the executive director. Used bicycles were something for the junk pile, and most experienced riders preferred the security of a brand-new aluminum frame.
But over the past decade, Recycle-a-Bike has gained an enormous amount of local ballast. A crew of employees and volunteers now runs a pair of New York stores, one here in Manhattan and the other in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn. (DUMBO means “down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass.”) The organization’s youth programs are a big draw for students like Feliciano, who enrolled last year at her public high school. She is now an expert wrench-slinger and a paid Recycle-a-Bicycle associate. Under the tutelage of an experienced mechanic, Feliciano and fellow associate Gina Estevens labored recently to tune up a long line of bikes.
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[Excerpt] A year ago, Natalie Feliciano couldn’t tell the difference between a derailleur and a bottom bracket. A bike was a thing, made up of other shiny things, all of which churned together in some strange, magical concert. Sometimes she’d walk the streets of her East Village neighborhood and see rusty frames jammed into trash cans. “I’d think, you know, what a waste,” she grimaces. “All that garbage for someone else to clean up. But I never knew how much went into a bike.”
These days, her outlook is considerably more refined. On a warm fall afternoon here, standing in the cluttered back room of Recycle-a-Bicycle’s Manhattan store, Ms. Feliciano absentmindedly runs a greasy chain through her fingers and holds forth expertly on all things two-wheeled. She talks about the sudden passion in New York for fixed-gear bikes – once popular only among reckless, bombastic couriers – and her own stable of rides, which includes a bicycle she repaired on her own time. “I like knowing I can help my friends with their bikes. I like to know that I can be there,” she says. “And I like knowing how they work. How everything fits together.”
The nuts-and-bolts approach is something Recycle-a-Bicycle has always done particularly well. The organization was founded in 1999 with a straightforward mandate: Repair abused, remaindered, broken, or worn bikes and funnel them back to consumers. At the time, New Yorkers were wary, says Lisa Stein, the executive director. Used bicycles were something for the junk pile, and most experienced riders preferred the security of a brand-new aluminum frame.
But over the past decade, Recycle-a-Bike has gained an enormous amount of local ballast. A crew of employees and volunteers now runs a pair of New York stores, one here in Manhattan and the other in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn. (DUMBO means “down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass.”) The organization’s youth programs are a big draw for students like Feliciano, who enrolled last year at her public high school. She is now an expert wrench-slinger and a paid Recycle-a-Bicycle associate. Under the tutelage of an experienced mechanic, Feliciano and fellow associate Gina Estevens labored recently to tune up a long line of bikes.
