kids' bicycle trade-up program
Hi Folks,
Is anybody doing a kids' bicycle trade-up program? Can you share specifics?
Thanks and good health, Weogo
PigeonRiverBikes.org
We tried to partner with a local child-centered reuse business called Mama Goose; they focus on childrens' clothing and accessories (baby gates, high chairs, bottles, etc.) with the intention of solving the ages-old problem of outfitting young, growing children who outgrow their clothes and accessories and providing parents with a place to donate or consign these items and recover or at least preserve a lot of the value.
Our intention was to offload output of our many chikdrens' bikes to them while providing all of the maintenance and refurbishment for said bikes. We just sought an appropriate outlet for these bikes, basically.
At the time, the management of Mama Goose wasn't interested, I think fpr space/storage reasons but perhaps for liability reasons too. But I never stopped thinking it was the right partnership, and they eventually changed management, as retail often does, and if I proposed a similar idea to them now they might bite. So if you have a similar business or nonprofit in your community, you might propose such an arrangement to them. Definitely be prepared to handle all of the refurbishment, maintenance, and warranty (if any) yourself. It could be worth it to explicitly claim insurance responsibility for the bikes as well.
~ Cyclista Nicholas
Hi Nicholas,
What a great idea, with multiple organizations and more people benefiting from working together.
The thought-out specifics are helpful.
Thanks and good health, Weogo
hi all,
in what now feels like another lifetime, i started a kids bike library at the bike kitchen https://www.thebikekitchen.ca/kidsbikelibrary in vancouver, canada. it started as a collaboration with a local organization that provided services to refugees, but after a couple of months, local media picked the project up and suddenly we had kids coming from all over the city to get / swap a bike.
i'm not sure how it is being run these days, but back in the day it was sliding scale, and you didn't need a bike to access it (as in, you could swap your bike for a bigger one, but we would also just give kids bikes at whatever price the family was able to pay). we also held weekly kids bike repair days, because as i'm sure many of you know, kids bikes are often in quite a state of disrepair.
i think that overall the project was really successful early on largely due to a few factors:
- we had a constant supply of kids bikes and a solid volunteer base to fix
the bikes 2. we secured ongoing operational funding (i know this can be difficult, but the right funder is likely to eat up this "sustainable" low-barrier approach to getting kids on bikes) 3. we collaborated with local orgs and other community bike shops to keep the kids bikes flowing and promote the program 4. being featured in local news really helped get the word out, after that we got a lot of traffic just from word of mouth
again i can't really say what's going on these days with the kids bike library (maybe someone at the bike kitchen can chime in?), but happy to answer any questions! it was a really beautiful project to set up and run, and i strongly recommend trying to make it happen in your city :)
happy riding and wrenching to all of you out there!
<3 aida
El lun, 18 may 2026 a las 1:09, weogo--- via TheThinkTank (< thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>) escribió:
Hi Nicholas,
What a great idea, with multiple organizations and more people benefiting from working together.
The thought-out specifics are helpful.
Thanks and good health, Weogo _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
participants (3)
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Aida Mas Baghaie -
cyclista＠inventati.org -
weogo＠liveedge.net