Cedar Rapids nonprofit working to provide bikes to those in need

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Chain Reaction Bike Hub opened in May 2024 with ambitious goals about breaking barriers to reliable transportation by providing cheap bikes for in-need community members. Ten months later, community support for the program hasn’t slowed, according to Chain Reaction Executive Director Evan Schmidtke.

“It is super exciting to see, in less than a year, where things have skyrocketed to,” Schmidtke said. “I don’t think that we thought, sitting here this time last year, that these programs would be running, and that we would have this incredibly dedicated volunteer base, and would have a space filled with bikes for sale.”

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Background

The nonprofit opened last May in Cedar Rapids as a non-traditional bike shop. It takes discarded bicycles from the Cedar Rapids Linn County Solid Waste Agency and also accepts donated bikes. The bikes are fixed up by volunteers and sold at low costs.

The bike hub has board members from local organizations including Linn County Public Health and the sustainability program at the solid waste agency.

When the bike hub opened, Schmidtke told The Gazette he had about 25 bikes ready to be sold and had several ideas for how to expand the program beyond selling bikes. Those ideas included creating partnerships with other nonprofits to get free bikes to those who need them, hosting programs and classes that could prevent violence and support youth by teaching them about bike care and maintenance and eventually creating a bike borrowing program like the Iowa City Bike Library.

What’s happened since

Since opening, the shop has sold 114 bikes and given away about 170 free bikes, according to Schmidtke.

The free bikes are given through three programs the nonprofit has established, all of which can be applied for on the nonprofit’s website.

The first is called the Earn-a-Bike program, and allows anyone to earn a free bike by spending 12 or more hours volunteering with the bike hub.

The second free bike program is called the Cycle for Change program, and involves partnerships the hub has created with community resource organizations in Cedar Rapids, including CRUSH Recovery Community Center, Willis Dady Homeless Services, the Catherine McAuley Center and Foundation 2. These organizations can refer anyone working with their case workers to the Chain Reaction Bike Hub, and those individuals will be given a free bike.

The third program is called Bikes For Kids, and it does exactly what the name says: provides children’s bikes to families who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford them.

“If you have a kid and they need a bike, we will give you a bike. It’s about as simple as that,” Schmidtke said.

The free bikes and bikes for sale are all available thanks to the help of many volunteers who help with repairing bikes, selling bikes and taking older bikes apart to recycle pieces that can’t be reused.

Max Venturo has been volunteering with Chain Reaction since shortly after it opened. He moved to Cedar Rapids in January 2023 and had been looking for cycling-related stuff to do because he enjoys cycling.

“I’m here just about once a week … and it’s been really awesome. My job every day is sitting in front of a computer a lot, so it’s nice to come to a place where I can do something that I’m interested in, but also just get my hands dirty. And the obvious main reason is it’s a way to serve the community in a bunch of different ways,” Venturo said.

Jeff Lingo started volunteering with the shop in November. He had just retired and moved back to Cedar Rapids, where he grew up.

“I have a real passion for bikes, so I tend to be here two to three times a week, just because I’m retired. I like working on bikes. I like putting people on bikes,” Lingo said.

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Other programs, like the idea for a bike library, haven’t yet gotten off the ground, but Schmidtke said conversations about that idea are happening. Schmidtke said the library idea works well in Iowa City, where there are a lot of college students who will be living in the area only for a couple years. But in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to focus first on selling and giving away bikes, since most of the people he had talked to about the program had said they would be looking to own a bike permanently.

“But I think now we are forging some partnerships with some of the local colleges and universities like Coe and Kirkwood and Mount Mercy. We have some of their students that are actually volunteering here with us, and we’re seeing that maybe that bike library model would work on some scale,” he said.

The idea for classes and workshops surrounding bike repair also has been in the works, and is a little farther along. The bike hub launched a few classes last fall in which people could learn basic bike maintenance and care. Schmidtke said this year he wants to work on bringing those classes to neighborhoods to make them more accessible, especially for youths.

The bike hub has been working with some interns at Linn County Public Health to survey people who come into the shop and to gather data from other sources to determine which neighborhoods could most benefit from bicycle-related workshops.

“How do we serve these neighborhoods better? A big part of that is just meeting them in their neighborhood. It means you're providing them with a free tuneup and then showing them some real basics on how to change a tire, how to fill a tire, how to make sure that handlebars are straight,” Schmidtke said.

Schmidtke also is planning to host a bike swap this month that might become a regular annual event. A bike swap is a common event in cycling communities, in which individuals can sell and buy bikes and bike supplies. Sugar Bottom Bikes hosts one every year in North Liberty, but Schmidtke said there isn’t one in the Cedar Rapids area.

A couple of volunteers at the hub attended the North Liberty bike swap in February, and they recommended starting on at the bike hub. Schmidtke said he’s excited about the event and hoping it will help spread awareness of the hub and its mission.

“We recently got … a whole batch of older, vintage Schwinn 10-speed type stuff. It's super cool, but a lot of that really deserves to be in the hands of folks who are going to give it some love and who want to refurbish it. So we're going to have a bunch of that stuff on sale for very cheap, just to move it out of here,” Schmidtke said.

The bike swap will be hosted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 29 at the bike hub, 1010 Third Ave. SW in Cedar Rapids.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com