June 2026

Happy summer solstice Working Bikes community! Things have been busy around the shop, with the concrete being poured for our new accessible ramp, 720 basement bicycles packed in 1 week heading to Mexico, huge donations from our usual collection partners and some new friends, and of course lots of fun bike rides! We have interns in for the summer, thanks to Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Instituto del Progreso Latino, and Project: VISION, in addition to our usual heavy traffic of bike shoppers, parts pickers, donation recipients, volunteer wrenchers, and folks in need of service. And now there's a TV up in our Service Department tuned to Telemundo so all can still keep track of the Copa Mundial.

In the midst of all the positive energy, we want to take a moment to reflect on the positive energy we have lost and to honor one of Chicago’s best, Riley O’Neil. Riley was doored and hit by a semi while riding in Bridgeport and tragically passed earlier this month. He was as kind as could be and always looking for ways to help, whether listening to community members around Chicago and getting bike racks (Riley Racks) installed where they'd be most helpful or jumping in to assist in the early days of the Bike Chicago program. Our hearts are broken and our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends.

Restocking Rubuguri

Our third shipment to Mariserina and the crew at the Rubuguri Bicycle Shop is on the water now, just starting a long journey that won't see the port of Mombasa until early September, and will have to head overland on truck to southwest Uganda from there. Working Bikes shipping partiers packed 568 bikes into the 40 ft high cube container, including 115 kiddie bikes that have been selling well (see above), a couple MTB tandems to test their suitability and utility on the roads around town, and a heavy duty filing cabinet that once served as parts storage in Chicago and will continue its service in Uganda.

The mechanics in Rubuguri have spaced out their refurbishing and sales, still maintaining some stock from their last shipment sent off in April of 2025. They keep busy with service work for the community and, of course, have full lives outside of the shop. Mariserina, Olivious, Dorothy, Promise, Lominate, Evalyne, and Constance -- the seven mechanics who make up the Rubuguri shop -- are all mothers, with 13 children across the team. Moreover, most of mechanics grew crops before taking on work at the bike shop and continue to grow food for their families and sell any excess at the market. We are honored to be able to support these amazing women and deeply appreciative of all the bicycle, tool, and parts donors in Chicagoland that have an essential role in filling up containers. From Mariserina: "... great job you people. Thanks for the work."

Our organization is powered by our fantastic collection partners, who collect bicycles from their community and send them our way to be given new life -- collection partners are responsible for more donations to Working Bikes than any other source. More than condo bike room clean outs, more than municipal evidence lockers, more than recycling events, Eagle Scout service projects, or donations walked into our HQ at 24th and Western. But sometimes we get an extra special type of donation, like the one from Pamela and Joe at Trailblazers!

With their shop closing, our team of Toms deployed from Chicago and SW Michigan on short notice to meet in Hobart, IN, and pick up A HUGE donation of over $50k of parts, tools and a pretty funky fat tire tadpole bike. This donation will help us build up hundreds of bikes for local donation, fix up bikes in service, refurbish bikes for sale and offer affordable accessories for sale. HUGE thanks to Pamela and Joe from Trailblazer, and our volunteers for bringing it back to WB!

We also want to shout out Peregrine for a donation of some beautiful parts and goodies for our gatherings, as well as Chris and the crew at Small Shop who donated 60 bicycles (!!!) from the basement of their -- yes, the name is accurate -- small shop. Small Shop's basement flooded earlier this month, soaking their inventory and necessitating a complete clear out to tackle the mold in the building and the rust poised to impact the bikes. We always encourage folks to support their local bike shops -- keeping service and quick accessory sales dollars in the community leads to a stronger cycling network -- but that goes double in particularly challenging times. If you're in or near Bronzeville, please give Small Shop some love!

It is time to save the date for the Working Bikes Anniversary Celebration! On Saturday, October 3rd, 2026, we will be celebrating our 27th Anniversary. There will be games, raffles, food, drink, of course a ton of bicycles, and all the wonderful people we can bring together in one place to celebrate the power of bicycles! From 4 to 8 PM, we'll close down the block on 24th place and open up our warehouse for tours and merriment. Our friends at Flor Azteca are on board again to cook on-site, Revolution is in for beverage support, and the silent auction items have already started accumulating. Mark your calendars now, tell your friends, and get excited for the best bike block party in the city.

​Tickets are available for purchase for $40 on Givebutter now, last year we were able to exceed our $100,000 goal and raised $111,000! For our 27th year we will be trying to raise $102,700 to help keep us rolling and maybe break some donation records.

Interested in sponsoring? 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 you can reach out to us at info@workingbikes.org.

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