In this newsletter...

1. Dr. MLK Jr. Day 1/19/26 @1-4pm
2. Help us redo our first floor!
3. Annual Meeting 2/4/26 @6:30
4. Inventory recap
5. Join the collection crew!
6. Mechanics 101 class every Tuesday @ 6pm-join us!
7. International shipping updates
   ​Shipping Party Jan 22nd-23rd

January 2025

Happy New Year, Working Bikes volunteers! We kicked off the new year by counting every single bike in the warehouse for our annual inventory day. It takes a lot of effort and people to count every bike in the shop, so we greatly appreciate everyone who showed up to help us with this big task! Social media and newsletter followers submitted their best guesses for the total number of bikes in the building and that number and winner is revealed in the section below! The winter season is much slower, meaning fewer customers are shopping for bikes and fewer bikes are available for donation/pickup. Despite the slower season in general, our collection crew, made up of staff and volunteers, continue to shake trees and bring bikes into the warehouse. We cleared out most of the dock and some of the basement last month when we sent out two containers: one to Africycle in Malawi and one to DHAD in Durango Mexico! We shipped almost 1,000 bikes internationally last month, making our 2025 total for international donations in 9,469! We plan to send our first container of the year to the Village Bicycle Project in Sierra Leone late next week (scheduled to arrive before 10 AM on the 22nd!). We are also excited to share the return of WB Board member Allison’s mechanics 101 class, which started on Tuesday, January 13th for one hour. If you’re interested in learning more about wrenching on bikes, see below for more information!

Please also join Working Bikes, Ride Illinois, Equiticity, and other North Lawndale partners for our annual commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's life and his residency in the North Lawndale community! The annual ride has been cancelled due to the expected weather, but there is still the celebration event from 1-4pm at the Firehouse Community Arts Center (2111 S. Hamlin Ave. Chicago, IL 60623). Join the community of North Lawndale in learning our shared history and have an opportunity to record an oral history! And watch out for a DIY Dr. King Ride Guide coming next week -- ride the route and learn the history on your own if you like riding through the dead of winter, or save the ride for later in the year.

Our first floor is undergoing a makeover and we need your help!

We are currently in the process of moving Brandon's to the southeast corner of the sales floor to make room for a new accessible entrance with a concrete ramp and position the volunteer shop closer to the service department. We are starting the major work of moving on Saturday, January 24th with our fearless leader Ed at the helm (thank you Ed!!!!). Our schedule for the first blitz of shifting around the space is below, and boy will we be needing volunteer assistance on moving all of our stuff!
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​Sat, 1/24 - Prep / clear area for move next week
Tue, 1/27- Begin move w/ small parts, tool benches, and truing stand
Wed, 1/28 - Move workbenches, mats and stands
Fri, 1/29 - Move storage items & intersperse between workbenches; Create workstation for Community Mgr.; open up access to basement through SE stairwell
Sat, 1/30 - Move Wheels

Drop in during a volunteer shift on these days to help out and you are free to join Friday the 29th starting at 11am as well! Just ring the doorbell and someone will come and get you.

Annual Meeting

Another year has flown by, which means it is time for the Working Bikes annual meeting! With that comes a new slate for our board, chosen by our Nominating Committee, and approved by our Board, which you can see below and vote up or down at the meeting:

Continuing terms (no vote needed): Jerry Cohen Phil Kaplan Kathleen Gregory Ed Hanlon Tom Mulhern Jane Anyango Claire Meyers

A big thank you to outgoing Board Member and Founder Lee Ravenscroft, who will step off the Board but will be invited to attend Board and Committee meetings with a nonvoting status.

Inventory 2026 recap!

Join our Collection Crew!

We are incredibly fortunate to have Charlie, our Bicycle Acquisition Specialist, and several dedicated volunteers who pick up thousands of bikes each year! The small crew of volunteers has expanded to include volunteers who have smaller vehicles and can prioritize smaller pickups, now known as the Collection Crew! The Collection Crew can expand WB’s collection capacity and improve efficiency, which will allow Charlie, our Bicycle Acquisition Specialist, to focus on bigger collections and developing relationships with more collection and donation partners. If you would like to join the collection crew and have access to a vehicle or truck (we have car racks!) and would like to help us collect bikes in the city and across the suburbs, send an email to charles@workingbikes.org to get in touch with Charlie and the team. Finn and Charlie created this wonderful orientation and there will be a kickoff/interest party on January 28th from 6pm-8pm to get to know the rest of the crew and interested volunteers. There will be snacks provided and a movie screening in Brandon’s. Any questions or concerns can be directed to Charlie or can be addressed at the party!

Mechanics 101 class series!

Back by popular demand, Allison’s bike mechanics 101 fix-it series! Last Summer, volunteer and board member, Allison, introduced a new “fix-it” series, open to all volunteers and budding mechanics who were interested in learning how to wrench, but hadn’t gotten the chance to come in for a full volunteer shift. The series was quite the success and Allison is excited to do it again! Starting on Tuesday, January 13th, Allison will be leading a one hour session every Tuesday evening at 6pm, concluding on February 3rd. Allison covered the basics first, like fixing a flat, and the next few weeks will cover headsets, bottom brackets, and finally hubs! Signups are on the volunteer calendar and will be limited to 10, so make sure you sign up quickly if you’d like to attend!

International Updates

December was quite a busy month for international shipments - our dedicated crew of volunteers and staff loaded two containers, one for Africycle in Malawi and another for DHAD in Durango, Mexico (formerly known as CIDHH). The container bound for Africycle was a full-sized and densely packed container with 489 total bikes, including 83 children’s-sized bikes, as well as extra parts, accessories, and tools. The very same week, we packed an even larger container for our partners, DHAD, in the Durango region of Mexico! DHAD is a human rights organization and they frequently travel to the US and Canada where the organization purchases a container, picking up supplies, like bikes, along the way home to Mexico! Since the driver had a long drive ahead of him, we loosely packed the large 53' container in one afternoon with vintage road bikes from the basement, children’s-sized bikes, and some adult mountain bikes. Despite packing the container less dense than normal, the crew still packed 453 total bikes, including 170 kiddie bikes, onto the container! We are so very thankful for our shipping party crew for prepping and loading almost 1,000 bikes onto containers in only one week! We want to especially thank super volunteer Dennis (pictured above in the middle!), for helping Missael load every day that week! Dennis has helped load many of the last few containers and we greatly appreciate his continual support.

Bike collections in the winter are a bit slower, but we’re still bringing in a steady stream of bikes through our awesome Collection Crew! We have a container scheduled for our partners at Village Bicycle Project in Sierra Leone on the 22nd-23rd of January! We need all the help we can get in these cold days, so please stop by and let's load some bikes!