Ice Weasels Cometh Cyclocross Race: RIF Bike Donation Location

 The 2011 Ice Weasels Cometh At White Barn Farm cyclocross race is doubling as a bike donation location for the Roll It Forward Program. If you're not familiar with RIF, check out our About page. So if you have old bikes, particularly small mountain bikes, 24" wheeled bikes, and hybrids, bring them to the event this coming Saturday, December 10th at 458 South St. in Wrentham, MA. While our need is primarily for smaller bikes, we will accept any bikes at all. We are also badly in need of 700c and 26" rear wheels. Any spare used parts or old tires you might having lying around would be welcome as well.

Even if you're not a 'cross fan, you can still drop a bike by White Barn Farm on your way to do some Wrentham Outlets shopping!

But wait...there's more!

And, if you donate a high-quality bike, you will be entered into a raffle for a free powdercoat for your bike, courtesy of Sugarcoat and Geekhouse Bikes.

See Thom Parsons at the event about donating your bike. He'll be the guy in the red hat, running around like a chicken with its head cut off...wearing a red hat.

Not familiar with Cyclocross? This is cyclocross:





Watch more video of NBX GP Of Cyclocross 2011 on cyclingdirt.org

Thanks To Kryptonite Locks

Often when Roll It Forward donates bicycles to folks in the Boston area, those bicycles are accompanied by safety training and U-Locks. And thanks to a really good deal from our buddy Daryl at Kryptonite, we now have some high quality Kryptonite Keeper Locks to donate.

Did you know that Kryptonite is a Massachusetts-based company? Just another reason why they're awesome. 

Thanks Kryptonite!

We'll Get By With A Lot of Help From Our Friends (At Cantabrigian Mechanics)

 At Roll It Forward we get some real, uh...gems sometimes bike-wise. We spend a lot of time playing the role of alchemists, attempting to turn lead (or something else) into gold. The other day we were working on a Free Spirit "OUTRAGE" and the cable stops for the rear derailleur broke off during "pre-stretching." Pre-stretching is where you kind of tug on the cables lightly to settle the ferrules (housing end-caps) so that they don't do it themselves during use, causing the derailleur adjustment to go all out of whack. The cables don't really "stretch" at all.

The lifespan of a Free Spirit with a busted cable stop is about that of horse in the old west with a broken leg...

usually.

Except for when you have friends like Ricky DeFrancisco from Cantabrigian Mechanics to help you out. Ricky offered to braze a new cable stop onto our otherwise doomed OUTRAGE so that it could get fixed up and donated to a deserving Boston resident. Cantabrigian generally does very high end, high quality work, but they took time out of their busy schedule to get awesome on a maybe-not-so-awesome-bike for the Roll It Forward program and we appreciate it greatly. Thanks guys!

Thanks To Eastern Mountain Sports

 

Roll It Forward relies on various partners in the Boston area to provide the program with bikes, Eastern Mountain Sports is one of those awesome partners. EMS encourages their customers to donate their old bikes to RIF and thus far they have have been incredibly successful — collecting countless bikes, many of them in phenomenal condition!

 

Big, HUGE thanks to EMS for their support of the Roll It Forward program.

Thank You JRA Cycles

A lot of businesses help the Roll It Forward Program do what it does. One of these businesses is JRA Cycles in Medford, MA. They handle the ordering of all the parts used to get our bikes ready for donation. And they're great guys. Recently, when we stopped in to pick up our parts order, the crew at JRA was in the midst of handing out Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters, and getting a little goofy while doing it.

Thanks for being awesome JRA!

Big Thank You To Pedro's For Their Support of Roll It Forward

We just wanted to give a big shout out today to HUGE Roll It Forward supporter, Pedro's Bike Care. Pedro's has really thrown itself behind cycling advocacy on the local and national level, supporting all sorts of great events and programs. The Roll It Forward "Bike Mines" are fully stocked with an array of Pedro's products, from Bike Lust to Chain J., to ratcheting wrenches and vise whips. Pedro's is based out of Haverhill, MA. We say, when it comes to bike tools and lubes...buy local!

Volunteer Night At The Boston Bike Mines

The Boston Bike Mines (the warehouse where RIF bikes are stored) can be a lonely place...a dark, damp, lonely place. Once, while working down there in "the cage," I overheard two men talking as they walked by, "Yup, there's nothin' down here but rats and roaches..." He stalled as he caught a glimpse of me at my bike stand working. He didn't finish his sentence, but I knew what he would have said, "nothin' down here but rats and roaches, and...that weirdo working on bikes." But last Tuesday night the mines were not a lonely place; they were full of life. Our friends from Dot Bike, Boston Cyclists Union, Harris Cyclery, Cambridge Used Bicycles, and elsewhere showed up to help prepare a massive pile of used bikes for Roll It Forward donation. 

More photos of the event after the break...

LIFT Bicycle Giveaway at City Hall Plaza

On Wednesday June 1st, Roll It Forward got together with LIFT on a beautiful, sunny day at City Hall Plaza to donate bikes to a group of folks from Boston's homeless community. It wasn't so much a donation as payment for services rendered — all the recipients earned their bikes through performing community service and many of them listed volunteer work as one of the reasons why they needed a bike to get around in the first place. 

Read more...

Good Shepherd Church Women's Health Fair

May 28th 2011, Roxbury, MA

Roll It Forward provided a fleet of Giant bicycles for a women's health fair put on by the Good Shepherd Church in Roxbury. The day started off slow...

Trade In Your Mountain Bike For A Steel Road Bike Or 3 Speed

Roll It Forward wants your old mountain bike! We'll even trade you a sweet, old steel bike or frame (perfect for converting to a fixed gear or single speed) for it. The level of bike you get will be commensurate with the bike you trade in. We're basically looking for entry level name-brand mountain bikes (no Huffies!) in good condition. 

Contact us HERE if you're interested.

Where to Donate

This blog is no longer in use by the Roll it Forward program. Please visit www.bostonbikes.org for the latest information!

Donate your bikes right away at the following locations.  Bike shops listed below are offering a special coupon to thank you for your usable donation.  On top of that, we're offering a *free cycling jersey* to the first people who donate their bike(s).  And, certain bike donations will enter you in a raffle for a free bike powdercoating package from Geekhouse bikes!

•  Cauzoom Purchase a $50 EMS gift card and $20 of it will go to our project.  Or donate the amount of your choosing directly to help us reach our goal.  Find out more at http://cauzoom.com/project/Roll-it-forward
•  Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS) full service bike-shops
• Boston: 1041 Commonwealth Avenue, (617) 254-4250
• Cambridge: Harvard Square, 1 Brattle Square, (617) 864-2061
• Hingham: 6 Shipyard Drive, (781) 741-8808
• Newton: 300 Needham Street, (617) 559-1575
• Wheelworks Cycling Centers:
• Belmont Wheelworks: 480 Trapelo Road, (617) 489-3577
• Ace Wheelworks in Somerville: 145 Elm Street, (617) 776-2100
• Giant Cycling World-Boston
• -The Fenway: Corner of Kilmarnock/Brookline (next to Chipotle), (617) 424-6400 
• Back Bay Bicycles: 366 Commonwealth Ave (corner of Mass Ave), (617) 247-2336
• Salem Cycle: serving the North Shore
• 72 Washington St. in Salem, MA (978) 741-2222
• Papa Wheelies: in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
• 653 Islington St., Portsmouth NH (603) 427-2060
• Sudbury residents: Sudbury Recycling and Refuse Center, 20 Boston Post Road, (978) 443-2209 ext. 1221

For more information on any of these shops, including maps to each location, visit our partners page.

* Free cycling jersey while supplies last.  You will need to email rollitforward@gmail.com for a jersey claim form to take with you to the shop.

THIS SATURDAY! Donate your bike with REI and Emerald Necklace Conservancy

Boston's Emerald Necklace Conservancy and their neighbor, REI at Landmark Center, are partnering to host a one-day bike donation drive this coming Saturday June 11th, from 10 AM to 2 PM.

The event is at the Emerald Necklace Visitor and Volunteer Center in the Back Bay Fens, *not* at the REI store location.  Bring your old bike and bike parts to 125 The Fenway to receive a great coupon for REI bike gear, free b.good milkshakes, and other goodies from our partners.

For more information, see the REI event page, or email Roll it Forward by clicking here.

McKinley School Roll It Forward/Youth Cycling Hybrid Program

Back at the end of April R.I.F. coordinated with Nate Lewallen, the shop teacher (and a whole lot more) at the McKinley Middle School on a program which brought together two of Mayor Menino's Boston Bikes initiatives — Roll It Forward and Youth Cycling Program. While Roll It Forward is dedicated to providing bikes to low income Boston residents, the Youth Cycling Program is tasked with providing bicycle safety education to Boston youth through schools, community centers, camps, and other outlets. 

The event at Mckinley involved a serious bicycle maintenance component. The kids learned how to do everything from fixing flats to truing wheels. Of course, as usual, a huge element of the YCP training was focused on helmet safety. The Roll It Forward aspect of the program was that, at the end of the instruction period, all the kids got to keep the bikes they had learned how to maintain. 

More photos after the break...

West Broadway School Kids Bike Donation

It seems odd to be posting photos of kids riding in mittens and jackets on the first 80-ish degree day of the year, but we've been busy here at Roll It Forward. But busy here is a good thing. Busy means more people on bikes. This donation happened in South Boston on April 31st 2011, just a day after the donation at Orient Heights in East Boston. Come to think of it, why were kids wearing jackets and mittens on April 31st? Well, because it was unseasonably cold and eventually, sleety. It would be nice to say that the dampness didn't put a damper on the festivities, but that was not the case. As the sleet began to fall, people began to scatter. At one point, late in the event, one kid refused a bike. His dad asked him why, "THIS ONE'S WET!" he replied. After he finished laughing, the kid's dad told him he could fix that, no problem. 

More photos after the break...

East Boston Orient Heights Roll It Forward Donation

March 30, 2011 

Roll It Forward donated nearly 100 bikes and helmets to the kids of the Orient Heights Boston Housing Authority Development in East Boston on a sunny but chilly day in late March. We couldn't have done it without help from our partners at Bikes Not Bombs, International Bicycle Centers, and The BHA. 

Here's a little photo-aided step by step of how it all went down...

Spring Cleaning! donate this weekend at L.L. Bean

Springtime is a great time to clear out your garage or basement of old bikes! Adult bicycles and kids’ bikes are acceptable for the program, provided they in reparable condition, free of major damage.   Anyone interested in donating their bike or spare parts can do so at L.L. Bean this weekend:When you donate this weekend, you'll get:

• A free bike jersey, while supplies last.  We're short on certain sizes, so donate soon! (Request jersey claim form in advance by sending a note to John).
• Certain donations are eligible for our free bike paint job raffle!  Our pals at Geekhouse bikes have offered to powder coat a bike frame for one lucky bike donor, a $300 value.  See this post for more information.

L.L. Bean Bike weekend: Friday-Sunday, May 13^th-15^th 
 at L.L. Bean retail stores in Dedham, Burlington, and Mansfield

-L.L. Bean is helping drive Spring donations to Roll it Forward in a major way.  During their bike weekend, they’re offering 20% off  all L.L. Bean-brand bikes, plus select cycling gear and apparel.  But with a bike donation to Roll it Forward, they’re offering an additional 10% off a qualifying purchase of a new bike. Accepting bike donations at Dedham, Mansfield, and Burlington MA locations only.

Dedham Store: 800-650-6358,  http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/1000001716

Burlington Store:  888-552-9866, http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/1000001712

Mansfield Store:  888-552-5547, http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/1000001721

If you can't make it this weekend, you still donate at one of our partner shops:

Ongoing bike donations at participating local bicycle shops

In addition to the two upcoming weekends, anyone can donate an old bike to one of many local bicycle shops participating in the program.  Participating shops include Wheelworks, Giant Cycling World, Eastern Mountain Sports, Back Bay Bicycles, Salem Cycle in Salem, MA and Papa Wheelies bike shop in Portsmouth, NH.  These shops are offering discounts in-store for donations and provide tune-ups to the donated bicycles.

We work with teens, too: The Emerald Necklace Conservancy partnership

Heading out to the SW Corridor path.

Until recently, all of our bike giveaways have been for small children, thanks to the generous ongoing bike donations of IBC.  But we've also been receiving many great adult bikes from all our generous donors out there.  Once they're fixed up, we partner with local Boston organizations to ensure that they go to groups of people who can use them.

Our first donation to a group of teens was through a partnership with The Emerald Necklace Conservancy.  Earlier this month, 7 young adults from their Youth Leadership Program received bikes from Roll it Forward and two solid days of on-bike instruction from our partner Bikes Not Bombs.




A recap and photos of the first day:  http://encgreenteam.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/ylp-receives-bikes-through-roll-it-forward/

And the second day: http://encgreenteam.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/roll-it-forward-bikes-not-bombs-day-2/

Learning how to fix a flat at Bikes Not Bombs

-images courtesy of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.

Rolling into Roxbury



Joseantonio Santos, of Bikes Not Bombs helps a young girl navigate her new bike.



Thanks to everyone who attended our last bike giveaway in Roxbury, and thanks to the Orchard Garden Community Center for hosting.  The Boston Globe online ran an article on the program here, and there's an additional gallery of photos here. 

Mayor Menino encourages a captivated new rider to always wear his helmet!

This bike giveaway could not have been possible without the generosity and community-mindedness of International Bike Centers.  All bikes distributed at this event came from their long-standing "trade-up" program of children's bikes. 

We also want to tip our hat to all the volunteers who showed up, especially our partners at Bikes Not Bombs, who brought a spirited energy and dedicated crew of youth to help set up the event and to teach the young kids safe bike handling skills.

Teenagers: bring your bike and get a leg up

Coming up this Sunday, February 13th, we're proud to be collaborating with the fourth annual TeenLife Community Service Fair.  At this exciting event, students and their families will meet face-to-face with representatives from 50 non-profits and find out about a wide range of volunteer opportunities for students in grades 7-12.

We'll have a booth at the fair to collect donated bikes from participants.  If you're attending, keep that old bike out of a landfill and donate it to our Roll it Forward program!  We're sure you have some old bikes collecting dust in the basement, or some bikes that the teens have outgrown.  We take those bikes, fix them up, and get them to people in the Boston community that could really use a bike.  All styles of bikes are welcome, and it's ok if bikes need minor repairs.

As an added bonus, when you donate a bike you'll get a free bike jersey and water bottle!
If your family has some bikes to clean out of the house, bring them out to the Mall at Chestnut Hill in Newton. Be sure to park at the upper level of the mall:  enter through the main entrance of the 2nd level.  This will prevent you from having to lug the bike(s) up the escalators.

To attend, preregister here:
TeenLife Community Service Fair
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
12-4 PM
Mall at Chestnut Hill, 199 Boylston St., Newton MA

Questions?  Email rollitforward[at]gmail[dot]com.

Sugarcoat your bike...after donating your other bike.

Sugarcoat by Geekhouse Bikes is sponsoring a powder coat raffle to help spur more bike donations!  When you donate a high-quality* bike to Roll it Forward, you will be entered into a raffle for one of 5 free powder coat and priming packages being offered by Geekhouse Bikes.  Look at the beautiful work they can do for your old bike and then read below the slideshow for more information about the promotion.

Progress So Far

Roll it Forward is rolling along toward our goal to distribute 1000 bikes.  To date, we have collected over 600 bikes (many still awaiting repair), and have already distributed over 250 bikes to kids across Boston.  The program isn't just for kids, though, and this Spring we will start to host bike distributions for adults. 

To give you the best idea of what our kids bike giveaways are like, it's a great time to introduce you to Thom Parsons, from our partner shop International Bicycle Centers.  Thom's quite a character: an excellent mechanic, a *really* fast bike racer, and an all around great guy.

It also happens that Thom is a talented writer.  In addition to writing professionally for bikerumor.com, he has written a set of very entertaining blog posts chronicling a mechanic's life behind the scenes of every bike giveaway.  His posts and photos are some of the best reports of what we do for each giveaway. 

Thom Parsons

• Photos: Read Thom's post about the Holland School donation back in June: 
• His report from the Alice Taylor donation with Mayor Menino.
• What it takes to prep all those bikes
• A great post and photos from our recent bike donations in Dorchester and Hyde Park: 

Our work has also garnered national attention by being featured in First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move Newsletter!  Let's Move is a national campaign to reduce childhood obesity, and Roll it Forward is proud to be part of the effort here in Boston.

Back Bay Bicycles joins the team!

Great news for everyone in the heart of Boston: Back Bay Bicycles on Commonwealth Ave. has joined Roll it Forward as our newest shop partner.  They are ready to start receiving donated bikes and like our other shop partners, they're offering a thank-you coupon for customers who donate. 

So, if you live in the Back Bay or simply have a good relationship with their shop, stop on by and say hi to Dave, Mike or their other staff members who took an interest in Roll it Forward and decided they wanted to be a part of it.  Their Boston store is at the corner of Commonwealth Ave. and Mass Ave. 

The other good news is that with this partnership, there's also now an outlet to donate in New Hampshire!  Back Bay's partner shop, Papa Wheelies in Portsmouth, NH can also receive bicycle donations, so if you live up North and want to donate, take your bike in and they'll make sure it finds its way down to us.

Powered by Pedro's

Last Fall, Pedro's Total Bicycle Care heard about Roll it Forward and asked what they could do to help.  They're an extremely conscientious company with strong New England roots, based just up the road in Haverhill, MA.

With so many bikes to refurbish, our project needed repair stands, tools, and bike cleaning supplies.  Pedro's has supplied these items and we're already using them to get hundreds bikes in proper shape before we get them out on the road again.

But they're not stopping there.  They don't just sell products, they know how to get their hands dirty.  Pedro's has a long history of providing mechanical support at the Grassroots level for all kinds of bike events.  So they're taking an active role in helping us out: helping to coordinate other local mechanics and perhaps even turning some of their own wrenches for some of the Roll it Forward bikes.  Thanks, Pedro's, for all your support!

Revitalizing your donated bikes with QBP

Roll it Forward is thrilled to announce a partnership with Quality Bicycle Products, "the shop behind America's bicycle shops."  Your local bike shop most likely has a relationship with QBP--as a source of spare parts, bike accessories, or clothing.

QBP has created a fund through one of their top local shops so that Roll it Forward can order the items needed to make used bikes rideable again--such as spare parts, tubes, tires, or handlebar grips.  These small items add up quickly, so their donation will allow our grant funds to go even further to fixing up more bikes.  QBP's donation is characteristic of a company that consistently leads the way for the bicycle industry in advocacy and community responsiveness.

Featured: First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign, January 2011

January 2011: A substantial profile of Boston's Community Cycling Programs, including Roll it Forward, was recently featured on First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" blog.