By James Knight — Reno Bike Project is a community bike shop and nonprofit, featuring a store full of parts and bicycles that are all donated. People can come in and work on their bicycles as well as take classes where they can repair their bikes or even build an entire bike from scratch using materials provided by the shop.
The Reno Bike Project (RPB) is located in Reno, Nevada and was founded in 2006 by Noah Chubb-Silverman and Kyle Kozar. The shop features workstations where people can pay to come in and work on their bikes. Tom Chapel, a program manager at RBP, described the shop’s environment: “People can come in and rent a workstation, and we have mechanic educators that will show them how to use all the tools and walk them through any kind of labor they do on their bike. Also, memberships. Members kind of just can use our tools a lot. So, we get people who don’t really need help with stuff, but don’t have a full tool kit, who will just come in and use our work stands. We also have like, 100 bikes on the floor for sale. Pretty much year-round, we refurbish donated bikes and save parts and gather everything.”
Reno Bike Project also features a bicycle repair class where people can use donated tools and parts to essentially build a bike from scratch. These bikes go into the Project’s commuter program, where they partner with homeless shelters and other charitable organizations to give away bikes to help people commute.
Chapel said, “They build a whole bike. They redo everything on it, like every part, every aspect of it gets over. And so, all of those bikes that come out of the bicycle repair class go into the biggest little commuter program. And so, after each group there’s like 10 bikes come out, all different sizes. And then all of our biggest little commuter applicants will apply through their group. Others are the cares campuses like the homeless shelters, like Hope Springs. We’re just trying to get people to get be able to commute. It’s like our commuter program”.
The Reno Bike Project also targets kids through a free Wheels for Kids event where volunteers from the community can come in and work on bikes together. They aim to give away about 300 kids bikes each year and are hope to expand those numbers. They are also collaborating with the Boise Bike Project, a similar organization based in Boise, Idaho.
In addition to programs which help kids and adults obtain bikes, learn maintenance skills, and commute, the Reno Bike Project also relies on volunteers who put in tremendous work and hours to help the Project’s initiatives. Some volunteers work even more than the actual employees because they have the time, resources and desire to commit to the Project.
“We also have a very extensive volunteer group that comes that are our volunteers are right now. They’re kind of open to just pop in whenever. We have quite a few, maybe 300 roughly that we see pretty frequently. One volunteer, Brad does 1000 hours a year for us. He got his grandson a bike at our store and liked the vibe of the public workstation, and he’s retired, and was just like, hey, could I come and tinker on these bikes? He only wants to work on kids’ bikes. So, we set him up like his own workstation, and he’s pretty much an employee. He works more hours than some of our part time employees, but he gets paid in Mountain Dews,” Chapel said.
In addition to local homeless shelters, Reno Bike Project partners with many other organizations including Montessori schools, the Girl Scouts, Reno Housing Authority, and the Eddie House.
Their biggest fundraiser is the Burning Man Pop-Up, where they partner with the Burning Man Festival to sell bicycles used during the festival activities. This collaboration makes up about a third of their revenue. Over a period of just a week they sell 1700 bikes to the festival for between $100 to $175. Often times, festival bikes get donated back to the shop after the festival and are available for purchase. Reno Bike Project is also accepting Human Playa Vehicle donations (I.E. bicycles). All proceeds from the fundraiser go back into the shops year-round programming, which allows for staff to fix mountain bikes and continue to sell them at an affordable rate.
For more information on the Reno Bike Project, check out their monthly newsletter or visit their website https://renobikeproject.org/.
