By James Knight — The Bicycle Collective aims to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation, with transportation equity and self-reliance as a main focus. They partner with over 60 different organizations to provide refurbished bicycles and educational programs. These programs primarily serve refugees or lower-income families.
The Collective, which started in 2002, has locations in Salt Lake City, Ogden and St. George. The Collective opened up their new Salt Lake hub — The Kahlert Community Bicycle Resource Center — in November of 2023, with a grand opening celebration in May of 2024. The new building is located at 325 West, 900 South in Salt Lake City.
Thomas Cooke, digital strategist for the Bicycle Collective, detailed the organizations main stakeholders. One of which is their community partner IRC (International Rescue Committee), who are having trouble providing clients due to new immigration policies.
“There’s a spread that lists by location, all of the partners that we work with, and we’re always adding new ones. Sadly, right now, the way the political climate is, we probably won’t do a lot. We’ve been told by IRC that the demand for bikes for refugees is going to be down because there will be less refugees due to the new immigration policies.” Cooke said.
Despite IRC not being able to provide as many clients, Cooke believes it won’t be a problem finding people to give bikes to.
“We’ll find other people to give Bikes for Goodwill to. But it is kind of a sad thing. IRC is typically one of our largest partners, and they’ve already told us this year, don’t expect a lot of clients.”
Cooke shared information about the circumstances around Bikes for Goodwill’s recipients and how the organization promotes self-reliance. According to the Collective’s 2024 annual report, the Bicycle Collective gave away 1231 free bikes through their Bikes for Goodwill program during the year.
“A lot of times, the recipients for Bikes for Goodwill are among the most vulnerable of the population, it wouldn’t do any good if we just gave them a bike and didn’t also provide a low-cost way for them to maintain it or learn about maintaining them it themselves. A lot of it is from the bike itself to the maintenance to providing a low-cost way to take care of it. It’s about being self-reliant. If we gave somebody a bike and then they needed to get a new chain or something, and their only solution was to go to one of one of the higher priced bike shops, than we wouldn’t really be serving that mission. They could always come back and either fix it themselves or be taught how to fix it. So, our culture is about teaching self-reliance, but the bike just happens to be the tool that we focus on,” said Cooke.
Cooke also shared information about the shops two other current locations, one in St. George and one in Ogden. Unfortunately, the Provo shop closed its doors late last year.
“We had one in Provo, and we shut it down at the end of 2024. We just had some challenges, mainly with the building that we were in. The lease was up. We own the Ogden building. We don’t own our St. George location, but we rented from the city. With the Provo situation we had actually looked for over a year to find another like long term permanent home, and we just couldn’t find anything. There’s a group of people down in Provo that had been affiliated with us and are kind of doing their own thing now, but we wish them well. We just made the decision that the Provo location was not working for us”. Cooke said.
While the Provo Collective is closing, others are picking up the slack. One such place is the new Provo Bike Hub. The Hub is separate from the old Provo Bike Collective. Pando Refitters generously donated space for the Bike Hub to have limited services. The Hub is located at 249 N. University Avenue and will open May 1st. Kira Johnson, the board chair of Provo Bike Hub, said “We envision being a space dedicated to bike repair, education, bike rides—and above all, bringing people together.”
While Provo is in transition, St. George seems to be doing really well. According to Cooke the St. George location is in the same parking lot as Red Rock Bicycle Co., which is a great location, just servicing a very different customer base. “Ogden has a lot of potential. I’ll just say that it’s kind of gone up and down. It’s a couple miles from Weber State. There’s a lot of students up there. We think Ogden has a lot of potential. But it’s a smaller operation,” Cooke said
Due to not being reliant on federal funding, the shop relies a lot on the contributions of their partners and generous donors. Those who donate to the Collective, whether through an actual bicycle, a monetary donation or through volunteering, are vital to the Collective’s success. According to the Collectives most recent annual report, 334 volunteers helped contribute 6,757 hours doing mechanical work and bicycle repairs in the shop. In addition, any bicycles and parts that can’t be refurbished are recycled. This furthers the Collective’s mission of a cleaner and safer society.
Donna McAleer, the executive director of the Bicycle Collective, stated that over 72.5 tons of aluminum, steel and rubber were recycled last year. She noted that about 1/3 of the bikes donated get recycled right away. Bicycle parts that are still usable for repairs will be kept in house for people to come in and work with.
For those who can’t regularly volunteer or donate, there are still ways to get involved and contribute to the Collective. Each year the Collective hosts “Bike Prom” as their annual fundraiser. This year’s event will take place on August 23rd. It consists of a bike ride that starts at Liberty Park and ends at the Woodbine Food Hall. People can dress up in costumes or other formal attire and enjoy a bike ride and delicious food. The event not only raises money but is also designed to give back to the people that support the shop with a fun end of summer party.
For more information, visit the official website of Bicycle Collective at https://bicyclecollective.org.
For additional information about the Provo Bike Hub, visit https://provobikehub.org/
