Youth en Route community cleanup initiative makes it easier to re-home unwanted bikes
It’s unfortunate, but lots of bikes end up at Calgary landfills. People pick up biking as a hobby and then abandon it. Kids grow out of bikes, and those bikes end up collecting dust in a garage. Even working bikes end up discarded and forgotten if the owner moves, or simply can no longer ride it.
Youth en Route is keen to keep those bikes out of landfills and get them to Calgary’s youth. We’re working to make it easier to find them new homes. We’ve offered our services to Community Associations to support them at their community cleanups to collect unwanted bikes. Our goal is to get the bikes the hands of people who will appreciate them — ideally right back in the community they came from.
Our most recent cleanup
Youth en Route showed up at our most recent community cleanup in Dalhousie to do exactly that. We collected 85 bikes from the community and re-homed 30 refurbished bikes to new owners right on the spot.
“The number of bikes we’ve been saving has been astounding,” said Darcy Fauteux, cyclist-in-residence and mechanic with Youth en Route. “I’m super happy that we were able to save so many bikes, especially so many new bikes in good condition.”
Getting Youth en Route to your community cleanup is easy. For $250, just enough to cover our costs, we show up to the cleanup at a date of your choosing. That service includes basic triage work to determine whether a bike is safe for a rider, or is missing parts and requires refurbishment. We direct people to take the bike to a local bike repair shop, or get them to bring the bike into our Bike Hub and fix it themselves.
Our mechanics and youth volunteers show up to your cleanup and get to work! We collect bikes from your community, assess them for wear or damage, and if we can, find their new owners right there in the community.
“There were enough bikes that were brand new, able to be given away that were collected that we had to keep people out of the back of the truck,” said Fauteax. “People don’t want them, so I’m glad we can save them and get them to someone else to ride. There’s nothing like a new-to-you bike smile!”
Giving back to the community
To the inexperienced eye, a bike might look ready for the dump — but there’s no telling how much life could be left in it after some simple repairs. That’s where our bike mechanics come in. They assess collected bikes on the spot, determine what steps are necessary to get it running, and may even be able to do some quick fixes right there at the event.
We’ll use that assessment to guide families on the next steps they need to take with that bike. Our main goal will always be to keep people riding, even if that means we lose out on a donated bike. Any bikes we collect will be offered first to the community, with recommendations on what repairs, if any, need to be made. They can easily take it to a repair shop in their community to have work done. This boosts the entire cycling community.
If no one wants the bike, or the repairs are more than we can handle on-site, the bike comes back to our Bike Hub where we work to get it back up on two wheels and into the hands of a youth or child who needs it.
Repairing collected bikes
The Bike Hub is a community bike shop dedicated to repairing, refurbishing, and re-homing donated bikes while teaching people how to maintain their own two-wheeled vehicles. These bikes are repaired by our trained mechanics and volunteers and then given away through our I Want a Bike and Kids Bike Trade-up programs.
Our Bike Hub is geared towards accessibility, helping to educate young people on how to keep their bikes on the road longer. Bikes are the key to freedom and mobility for many young people, and they wouldn’t be able to get around without them.
For $20 a year, our members get access to all the tools and parts they’ll need to keep their two-wheeled machines on the road. Our mechanics help teach essential skills to members while helping them with maintenance and repairs, and our workbenches come equipped with every professional-grade tool you’d need to fix most common bike issues, as well as specialty tools for specific bike problems that aren’t as common. Members also get access to our full inventory of low-cost parts, whether they’re replacing broken parts or customizing their bike to fit their needs.
Invite us to your community clean up!
If you want us to be at your next community cleanup, contact us at programs@youthenroute.ca. When you invite us to your community, you’re helping keep bikes out of landfills by letting us clear unused and unwanted bikes away, while giving back to the community by finding new homes for refurbished bikes. Help us keep programs like this going and support freedom through active transport in Calgary!
And we always welcome bikes of all shapes, sizes and conditions to be donated at our Bike Hub. Look here for hours and location.
