One man’s garbage is another man’s bike

Don’t “do it yourself,” do it as a community.

That’s the idea behind Bloomington’s Community Bicycle Project. Located at 214 N. Madison St., the project allows anyone to buy a low-cost bike, build a bike for free and take it home or fix the bike they already have. The project has the tools, parts and knowledgeable volunteers to facilitate all of this.

The attic above the project’s garage is a dim grave site for the old, donated bikes. People can take a bike from there, use parts and tools from the shed-like garage downstairs and fix up a bike they can take home for free. Most people work outside, in the light, on the pavement. Bikes that volunteers have fixed hang inside the garage, ready for someone to pick out, pay a reduced price for and take home.

Madeline Windsor, the project’s volunteer coordinator, said that while the project definitely caters to low-income people, anyone can come in. Windsor sees a lot of Bloomington residents, college students and even international students. She said it’s a good, diversified mix of folks.

The project started as the Yellow Bike Project in the late 1990s. The Yellow Bike Project provided yellow bikes around town for public use. The maintenance on the bikes became too much, however, so the organization rethought its approach. Windsor said the Community Bike Project became essentially what it is today in the basement of Harmony Education Center until it moved to its current location.

The project came under the umbrella of Bloomington’s Center for Sustainable Living, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide resources for those interested in an ecologically sound community. The project is funded by sales of bikes that volunteers have fixed up, grants from the Indiana Bicycle Coalition and donations.

IU senior Eric Day goes into the project to fix his bike because he doesn’t have the tools to do it at his own home. Day said he rides his bike as much as he can, though he was limited this past winter to taking the bus or walking since his bike was broken.
While working on his bike outside the garage, Day became stumped and asked a volunteer for help. The volunteer showed Day a technique to place the derailleur and chain on his bicycle correctly.

Bloomington resident Nathan Bell said he comes in about two or three times a week to fix his bike. He said that he and his friends like to ride on trails, which is hard on the bikes.

“If you don’t know much about bikes, there’s always someone here to help,” Bell said. “I think that’s the coolest thing about this place.”

People can donate old bikes and bike parts. The old bikes can then be fixed up and taken home by patrons. Volunteer Zoe Neal said it was taking what people had decided was garbage and turning it into useful transportation.

Windsor said she thinks everyone should ride a bike. She said cars, much of the time, are unnecessary. She said the air would be cleaner and the roads would be safer for riders if more people rode bikes.

Besides the good it does by providing transportation and helping the environment, the project also provides empowerment to those who participate in it.

Windsor said that as people work on their bikes, they realize they’re simple machines they can actually fix and operate. Windsor herself learned to fix bicycles by stripping parts off unsalvageable bikes, building her own bike and picking up the rest from books.

She said a lot of the volunteers just work on bikes until they understand. She said that working on the bikes is essentially quite easy.

The volunteers love biking and bicycles in general. Neal said he became interested in biking after watching “Breaking Away,” and Windsor said she rides her bike much of the time, in part, because it’s fun.

Despite the fact that bikes are much simpler and easier to work on than cars, the volunteers never stop learning.

“Every time I come here I see something new; somebody’s working on something I haven’t seen before,” Neal said.