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fixing people's bikes

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I spent six hours today fixing kids' bikes at Main Square – a low-income housing complex at Main and Danforth in Scarborough. I lost all count of how many bikes I looked at. Over the course of the six hours we were solidly busy for about four hours and completely slammed for two of those.

When I say "kids's bikes", there were quite a number of adult bikes, I suppose, but the point was that we of Cycle Toronto's "Ward 32 Spokes" – and our friends at Cycle Solutions, the actual pro "wrenches" – spent a day out in the community helping repair some bikes in need.

Several of the bikes were in atrocious condition, unfortunately, including three that had to be scheduled for major surgery at Cycle Solution, and one that was deemed beyond even their skill. Happily, most of the bikes we saw were the opposite – in very rough shape but salvageable. It was particularly rewarding to get a kid back on bike that wasn't working on arrival. By the end of the day we had a small flock of such kids gleefully cruising around the square.