Community Spotlight: Recycle-a-Bicycle

By Shreema Mehta

If you live in Clinton Hill, you may have come across Recycle-a-Bicycle on Fulton Street. This nonprofit bike shop, affiliated with Bike New York, refurbishes and sells donated bikes, sells bike parts and offers repairs, to “empower New Yorkers to transform their lives and communities through bicycling.” The store has remained open during the pandemic, taking one customer or family at a time.

The store has also become the public face of Bike New York, which has had to cancel many of its events this year. Best known for its TD Five Boro Bike Tour, Bike New York’s vision is to “increase ridership, to empower youth to lead healthy, productive lives, to remove barriers to cycling, and to advocate for and expand services to reach more New Yorkers.” The organization offers education centers throughout the city, offering classes for both adults and children. In addition to the annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour, Bike New York regularly hosts bike rides for all experience levels. Its most recent ride was the Black History Month Brooklyn Heritage Ride, which took riders from Juneteenth Grove in Cadman Plaza to Prospect Park. 

In addition to education and community building, Bike New York is running a series of virtual talks for New Yorkers interested in cycling and cycling infrastructure in New York. (Sign up for the Spoke Series here, which includes a mayoral forum about creating an equitable streetscape.) The group is exploring the connections between cycling and social injustice in the series.

While the winter season is typically slow, Recycle-a-Bicycle’s store manager Hank Baker says the team is prepping bikes and gearing up for a busy spring season!