March 2026

Happy spring Working Bikes community! It's a time for cleaning, for growth, for getting outdoors, and spring is always when things really pick up here at Working Bikes. We'll have loads of donated bikes coming in through our dock doors and we will be busy directing each to bike to its highest and best use, ramping up our international shipping schedule, distributing the Cycle of Power bikes our volunteers have refurbished, and selling the refurbs built by our professionals. That's our usual seasonal rhythm, but there is lots of “NEW” happening at Working Bikes, too, including a new ramp entrance, new signage and new faces! All of our upcoming collection events are listed on our calendar here. Can’t make it to any of the events or are there none close enough to you? Check out our Drop-off location site map here, and you can always bring in your bikes to our shop at 2434 S. Western Ave during retail hours. We will also be having our next General Meeting on April 1st, from 6:30pm-8pm. Before the meeting at 6:30pm we will be screening Shop Dog: A Motley Movie a short film by Marie Ullrich which premiered last week at the International Cycling Film Festival! All are welcome, it is a great opportunity to learn more about our organization and meet your fellow volunteers! Check out the agenda here, as well as the Annual Meeting minutes here. Can't join in person? You can join via zoom, the link for that is in our linktree.
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In case you haven't heard, we rearranged our first floor and moved the location of Brandon’s Bike Shop -- our volunteer workshop -- to the front of our building. Volunteers are working with more natural light, some fresh air with the open windows, and in closer connection with our service department staff and the folks from the community who come in with repair needs. We will be having a re-dedication ceremony on Friday May 8th, with the Bernier Family. Brandon’s was founded to honor the legacy of Brandon Bernier, a Working Bikes volunteer who sadly passed away in 2013. He was known to say “Bring good people together. They’ll know what to do.” and that saying holds true in our volunteer workshop everyday.

Here are our next 5 collection events, with many more on our Google Calendar

April 4, 2026 10:00am - 2:00pm : SCARCE
Darien Recycling Extravaganza @ St John's Lutheran Church

April 11, 2026 9:00am - 12:00pm : FPCC Trash Bash Miller Meadow
@ Miller Meadows

April 11, 2026 9:00am - 1:00pm Glen Ellyn Spring Recycling Extravaganza College of Dupage Parking Lot 6 - Glen Ellyn

April 11, 2026 8:30am - 11:30am SCARCE Wheaton Recycling Extravaganza Fairgrounds- 2015 Manchester Road. Wheaton, IL

April 12, 2025 10am - 1pm River Forest Community Bike Exchange
730 Lathrop Ave, River Forest, IL 60305

New Ramp Entrance!

Working Bikes has owned our building for the past 14 years, and we occupied it for two years before that. We have been wanting to make the space more accessible for volunteers and customers with bicycles and folks in wheelchairs the whole time, and now it's looking like a solution is right around the corner. Our Building Committee has been hard at work securing permits and contractor bids for over a year and just this month our Board voted to move forward with a local contractor!

Starting in about 2 weeks we will be building a ramp and new entrance into our building! We'll excavate out the broken sidewalk on 24th Place, pour some new footings and a concrete ramp, add a railing, and cut a hole wide enough for a recessed double door opening with a vestibule to keep out the cold in the winter. We we will be working with Breaking Ground Builders, fka J&J Construction, a social enterprise that shares space with Breaking Ground, the North Lawndale housing equity organization. Construction will not affect retail or volunteer hours, but parking may get a little trickier for a couple weeks, and we might have to turn the stereo a little louder when work is underway. We're all looking forward to being able to roll into and out of the building come June!

Our Board President visits Lesotho!

It’s not just bikes that make it around the world! Our Board President Dave Gorman spent the last month in Lesotho, a nation surrounded by South Africa, visiting the Lesotho Federation of Cycling and the National Olympic Committee. Dave’s first trip to Lesotho was in 1989 through the Peace Corps, and 2 decades later he founded the Bikes for Lesotho organization to help spread bicycles and support cycling culture in the mountainous kingdom. In partnership with Working Bikes, we have sent over 7,000 bikes that are reassembled and distributed amongst schools and local bike organizations.

On this trip he also took part in the annual Moshoeshoe Walk, an epic 3 day 116 km journey started in 2007 retracing the journey taken by King Moshoeshoe I when he moved from Menkhoaneng to establish his stronghold at Thaba Bosiu, the birthplace of the Basotho nation. You can check out the news coverage from the kickoff here.

New Faces at WB

Working Bikes has an impact on communities across the globe and right here in Chicago, and it takes a huge community of support to keep the wheels turning and the bikes rolling in and out. Thousands of bike donors, hundreds of dedicated volunteers, and a staff of just under 20 have our 27 year old organization humming along as we head into the pleasant cycling season. About half of the small but mighty staff who devote their working hours to the cause -- strengthening local and global communities lives by redistributing donated bicycles as tools of self determination -- are working behind the scenes. Volunteers loading containers, folks out collecting bikes or tabling at events, or the crew working in our customer facing service and retail departments are often our public face, but the Production Mechanics are the key to keeping our work sustainable and keeping the streets of Chicago filled with beautiful and funky refurbished rides. They work upstairs in our Production Shop, refurbishing about 13% of the bikes donated to Working Bikes for sale, and those sales bring in the majority of our revenue and allow Working Bikes to donate the other 87% of bikes it receives.

Our team has welcomed new wrenches this past month, bringing in mechanic experience from across the country! We have 4 new mechanic staff members, Luna, our new Volunteer Capacity Building Mechanic, who works with volunteers four days a week and spends one day in our Production Department, and 3 new Production Mechanics -- Koston, KP, and Alice. We're excited to have the new energy on our team and looking forward to all the flourishes and character they'll add to the bikes that will roll out of our shop fully refurbished.

We brought in the new folks as two mechanics, Alex and Stephen, roll on. We're grateful for their time with WB, and glad to know Stephen will still have a wrench in hand with our friends up at Tailwind Cycles, where he'll be much closer to his theater. It won't surprise anyone to learn that the people at Working Bikes are incredibly talented in more than mechanics, but if you need proof you can see Stephen performing (and playing piano!) in Shakespeare’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at Edge of the Wood Theater. Catch him there from March 27 to April 12, and find more information here. You can see Alex hard at work in this short documentary made about Working Bikes on our YouTube channel!​