BickerBikes on ABC Channel 7 Chicago

The youth earn-a-bike program, BickerBikes, was featured on the ABC channel 7 Chicago news segment "Someone You Should Know" reported by Harry Porterfield. View the story at ABC7Chicago.com and click on Someone You Should Know, then scroll the menu to find "Program teaches children to repair, remake bicycles"

Learn more about the youth programs hosted and instructed by West Town Bikes on our Youth Programs page.

Donate to West Town Bikes to help support our youth programs.

Thanks to the monetary and volunteer contributions of many kind individuals, the work of West Town Bikes continues. Please help so we can continue the work that we do. Please click on the button/link below to make a donation in any amount you can. Thank you!

Donate

West Town Bikes also appreciates donated bicycles for use in the youth programs we provide. Contact Alex Wilson at alex@westtownbikes.org to make arrangements to donate your old bike, parts or other accessories.

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Help get more kids out on bikes!

BickerBikes, an innovative earn-a-bike initiative serving youth in Humboldt Park , West Town , Logan Square and Hermosa, is entering its fourth summer of operations and turning to the larger community for support. Read about the BickerBikes program on the LISC/Chicago web site and watch a great audio slideshow featuring the 2006 program at
LISC/BickerBikes

The sponsoring organization, Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation, bickerdike.org, hopes to raise $5,000 from grassroots donations to support a 2007 budget of $39,000. You can donate any amount by check or credit card by following the link above. Thanks!

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West Town Bikes offers and instructs several youth bicycle programs. In fact West Town Bikes was founded through it's flagship youth earn-a-bike program BickerBikes.

BickerBikes is a four week Summer youth earn-a-bike program that focuses on bicycle mechanics and safe cycling skills. BickerBikes is sponsored by our founding partner:

Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation.
Bickerdike is an affordable housing provider and community developer that serves over 1000 households in the Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Hermosa and West Town neighborhoods of Chicago. Many of the youth participants in BickerBikes are Bickerdike residents and all live within Bickerdike's service area.

BickerBikes offers two Summer Sessions where 12 teens, ages 12-16 years old, meet Monday through Friday from 12:30-4:30 to learn a comprehensive overview of bicycle mechanics as well as how to ride a bicycle for safe and effective transportation. Mondays and Wednesdays are spent in the shop where participants work on rebuilding their own project bikes that are donated from our partner Working Bikes Cooperative. Tuesdays and Thursdays participants learn safe cycling skills on WTB's fleet of well working program bikes. After a few days of skills drills in Humboldt Park and proving to the instructor that they are able to ride safe and predictably the class takes to city streets to ride to such places as Garfield Park Conservatory, University of Illinois at Chicago, Millenium Park and other locations throughout the city. Fridays are Open Shop day for BickerBikes where participants can catch up on their project bikes or bring in other bikes to work on.

BickerBikes WTTW Channel 11 piece

BickerBikes Audio Slide Show
(click on BickerBikes link)

To read more about BickerBikes and make an online contribution to help fund the 2007 program visit
LISC New Communities Program

BickerBikes has served and a model for several other youth bicycle programs including the
City of Chicago's After School Matters Junior Ambassador bicycle program. Instructor Alex Wilson developed the curriculem and piloted this program for the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and the Chicago Department of Transportation's Bicycle Program "Bicycling Ambassadors". The Junior Ambassador youth bicycle program works with 25 young people at each of it's locations at city high schools. The JA program teaches youth, 16-18 years old, basic bicycle mechanics, safe cycling skills and presentation skills all in a job training program. 25 program graduates go onto be "Junior Bicycling Ambassadors" employed by the Chicago Park District to work with Mayor Daley's Bicycling Ambassadors presenting on bicycling at park day camps and neighborhood events throughout Chicago.

West Town Bikes has also developed youth programs for other organizations such as the Robert E. Wood Boys and Girls Club in the Little Village neghborhood and an Ames Middle School program sponsored by the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. These programs also focus on bicycle mechanics and safe cycling instruction. WTB hosts a weekly youth "Bike Club" at it's facilty which will be moving to the Barreto's Union League Boys and Girls Club in Humboldt Park in the Spring of 2007. WTB has also consulted on youth programs for the village of Maywood and the Recyclery bike project in Evanston.

West Town Bikes would be happy to consult and contract on youth bike programs in your neighborhood of Chicago. WTB can offer program development, curriculem, budget development, tool and supply orders, instuctors, instructor training, project bicycle requesition, wholesale helmets and much more! Contact Alex Wilson for more information.