August 2026

The end of summer is in sight and school has already started for a lot of us but the riding conditions have been fabulous around Chicago these days and we intend to go out with a bang! September brings a couple of our favorite annual rides put on by long-time WB partners -- the Active Transportation Alliance's Bike the Drive is just over a week away on September 6th (say hi to us at the Festival in Grant Park after you've cruised Lake Shore Drive) and the Evanston Bike Club's North Shore Century is a few weeks away on September 20th. Get your training rides in now!

Earlier this month, we packed up 535 bikes that are now heading to our partners in the Ghana Village Bicycle Project, and just last week we raffled off 50 kids bikes at the Open Books North Lawndale Lit Fest. We have had a very busy season for our Cycle of Power program, with volunteers wrenching hard to build bikes that our neighbors will use as primary transportation. Folks referred from the VA, ReVive, Collective Chicago, Chicago Lights, Sarah's Circle, and more all got rolling this month on Cycle of Power bikes, and Working Bikes team of experienced volunteer mechanics - the Power Wrenchers - have been providing follow up service to keep those bikes rolling well. We'll keep wrenching hard right on through to October, when we'll celebrate 27 years of WB!

535 Bikes heading to Ghana!

Working Bikes partnership with the Village Bicycle Project stretches back to the early days of our organizations -- both the VBP and WB were founded in 1999. Both orgs are still rolling strong today in our shared missions, helping people improve their lives through the power of donated bicycles. VBP operates projects in Sierra Leone and Ghana presently and we were excited to send our first shipment of August to Eben and the crew in Accra. Thanks to help from our incredible community of donors, we had plenty of "shippers" on hand -- 26" mountain bikes and hybrids with wide tires are the most desirable bikes in Ghana -- but we included some goodies to support other work the VBP is doing to keep their operations fresh and engaging.

VBP has been working with Rahsaan Bahati and the team at the Bahati Foundation for the last few years to support and grow a cycling-as-sport culture in Ghana. A few more kids bikes, 700c road bikes, racing kit, and cycling trainers were in the mix this time as our Shipping Party Packers fit 535 bikes in the 40 foot high cube can to support VBP's community. Thanks to the Bahati Foundation, more young riders are having fun competitively on their wheels in addition to getting where they need to go. Working Bikes has been proud to support not just cycling as transportation, but all forms of cycling in our partner communities, and we've loved to see how racing builds enthusiasm for bikes in general in Lesotho, Sierra Leone, and Ghana.

Summer means construction on the streets in Chicago, and this year our warehouse was no different. We have been making a lot of changes to our retail floor in preparation for the new ramp entrance we have been installing. We are very excited for you to come check it out! We have already made some dramatic moves on the first floor, like moving our volunteer shop, Brandon's Bike Shop, to the front of the building for some much needed natural light. We've changed up our sales floor, added another check out kiosk, and brought up our Sukkah from the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival to house our new sales desk.

We'll be tweaking our space over the coming months to improve the volunteer experience, make it easier for folks to find refurbished bikes and used parts, and improve the flow of bikes, parts, and people on the first floor. Huge thanks are in order for Ed Hanlon, Board Member and chair of our Building Committee for his indefatigable efforts to improve our space. We will also be filling the parkway on 24th Place with native plants and grass courtesy of Midwest Goundcovers and Gethsemane Garden Center. The project will be completed in the coming weeks, ready to show off on October 3rd at our Anniversary Party.

All the work we have done this summer is able to happen because of the money we raise during our one fundraiser event of the year, our Anniversary Party! Tickets are available for purchase for $40 on Givebutter now, which gets you some great brews from Revolution Brewing and Chaos Brew Club, food from Flor Azteca and a chance to get a tour of our entire building! It is a great opportunity to support our work and meet our amazing community, ride some silly bikes and win some raffle prizes. Hope to see you there!

Interested in sponsoring Working Bikes?

You can find out more about monetary sponsorship here, and we love to receive donations for our raffle and silent auction. If you are interested in donating please reach out to us at info@workingbikes.org.

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