Bringing Life to Old Bikes
Over the summer coming into my senior year I decided to stop by a bike shop and see what was up. The bike shop is also known as Working Bikes. Working bikes is a non-profit organization dedicated to fixing up old bikes and donating them to communities across the world. That means the bike shop gets new shipments of donated bikes every week and fixes them up to once again ship out to communities in need. During my first few days at working bikes I was tasked with sorting reusable bike pieces in order to familiarize myself with bike anatomy. On my first day while sorting out some metal pieces I was invited to take a quick crash course on replacing flat tires with some other interns. This was a fun experience and I learned useful skills. By the end I even received two free bike levers. As the summer months went by I was volunteering about 3 days a week. Throughout these weeks I was able to learn many simple skills fixing up old bikes. I was also able to form connections with fellow volunteers and bike shop employees. I was able to meet another fellow bike mechanic who was similar in age to me. We got a long very well and she was almost like a mentor for me when it came to overhauling wheels. I will forever be grateful for the time I spent at working bikes and hope I can return this summer to fix up some more bikes. Below are some pictures I took during my time at working bikes. Thank you for reading!
Comments
Post a Comment