Chris Richmond, director of The ReCYCLEry, rolls out one of the newly tuned up Blue Urban Bikes. Photo by Kirk Ross
By Jack Carley
Staff Writer
The ReCYCLEry, Carrboro’s nonprofit community bike workshop, is working to bring more bicycles to Carrboro roads. By expanding their bike loan program, called Blue Urban Bikes, or BUB, they hope to get people pushing bike pedals instead of gas pedals.
The Blue Urban Bikes program is the ReCYCLEry’s biggest push to promote bikes on Carrboro and Chapel Hill roads. For the annual price of ten dollars or two hours of volunteer work, anyone can become a BUB member and borrow the refurbished blue bikes for a day at a time, complete with two cargo baskets, lights, a lock and a helmet.
The BUBs are found at hubs — cooperating local businesses where the bright blue bicycles may be rented for up to a day at a time by BUB members.
With some help in the form of a $15,000 grant from the Chapel Hill Town Council, the BUB program is expanding. There are currently hubs at different locations such as 3 Cups coffee shop, Skylight Exchange, Back Alley Bikes and Townsend Bertram & Company at Carr Mill Mall, with several more in the works.
The repair workshop and headquarters of the Blue Urban Bike program, found at the corner of Old Pittsboro Road and Daffodil Lane, is a large shed in a clearing in the woods.
Sundays, the shop opens from noon to five, when anyone can come and work on their own bike or rack up 15 volunteer hours towards earning a refurbished bike of their own.
Bike workshop
It’s a Monday night at the ReCYCLEry, and bicycle mechanic and repair lessons are being offered for the price of a few volunteer hours.
Dozens of bikes lean on each other, grouped according to size and type. Dozens more hang from the shed awnings on bent bike pedals — a resourceful use of spare parts. Some will be refurbished with fenders and baskets and painted blue. Some will be dismantled.
Elizabeth Goldsmith (left) and Hannah Grimes at a recent repair session. Photo courtesy of The ReCYCLEry
Concealed by the trees, a few people gather to listen and watch as the intricacies of bicycle mechanics are explained.
The man dabbing purple bike grease into the moving parts of a bike wheel is Chris Richmond, director of The ReCYCLEry.
“In the last couple months, it’s really taken off,†he says of the BUBs. The ReCYCLEry has received over 200 donated bikes since September.
“Only one of our bikes was stolen, when we first started,†Chris explains. He recalls how he later spotted the bike, now painted bright red. “We chased him down and talked to him†— Chris waggles a finger — “but we let him keep the bike.†The story demonstrates the true goal of the ReCYCLEry – getting folks on bikes.
The ReCYCLEry hopes to use bicycles to encourage a sense of community. “Riding a bike is getting you out of the box of your car. Our society has too many boxes,†Chris says. “Cars, televisions, and houses are our boxes. In those areas, you’re insulated from the communities around you.â€
Blue Urban Bikes is a smaller scale version of similar bicycle rental programs adopted in Europe in cities like Paris and Lyon. Smaller scale, perhaps, but on wheels nonetheless. Chris is looking to export the program to other places.
“The idea is to make a model that works for this town,†Chris explains, “every idea gets muddied from too broad a scope. But you take an idea like a bike, and a town like Chapel Hill or Carrboro. And you take what works, and then you can export that model. It’s spiriting to find a local project and integrate it. Then you can tell others what they can do.â€
The ReCYCLEry and the BUBs are for anyone who would like a bike. “We stay away from money and keep it barter,†Chris says. “We’re a need-based organization, whether that need is actual or perceived… it’s a great common ground.â€