In addition to local for-profit bike shops, the East Bay is also home to a number of non-profit community shops offering services such as bike repair and instruction, used bicycle sales, youth training and earn-a-bike programs, and more!
Donating bikes and bike parts
Bikery and Oakland UpCycle
The following community bike shops in the East Bay accept used bikes and parts donations. Some shops also offer tune up services for a fee, with proceeds going to support their programs. Please consider supporting all of them with monetary or used bike donations, as a volunteer, or as a customer.Find a shop near you and follow the links below for shop hours and donation guidelines:
- Concord Bike Kitchen: Olympic High School, 2730 Salvio St; Contact Info@BikeConcord.org
- Street Level Cycles: 84 Bolivar Drive, Berkeley (WatersideWorkshops.org)
- Biketopia Community Workshop: 1752 Alcatraz Ave, Berkeley (BiketopiaBerkeley.org)
- Spokeland: 813 37th St, Oakland (Spokeland.org)
- The Bikery/Cycles of Change: 1246 23rd Ave, Oakland (Bikery.org)
- Scraper Bike Team “The Shed”: MLK Jr Branch Library, 6833 International Blvd, Oakland (ScraperBikeTeam.com) (Facebook page)
- Bad Business Model Bikes: 894 Carlson Blvd, Richmond, CA 94804 (BadBusinessModelBikes.org) (Facebook page)
- Union City Teen Workshop: 33623 Mission Blvd, Union City (Info page)
Cycles of Change in East Oakland is seeking additional bike donations in an attempt to increase from 200 to 300 the number of refurbished bicycles given away to low-income residents in the East Bay. Recipients also receive a helmet, lock, lights and four hours of instruction in urban riding from the Oakland UpCycle program.
“We make sure they know how to ride safely and make sure they don’t lose the bike,” says Binky Brown, the Oakland UpCycle outreach coordinator.
Each class consists of about 12 clients from a range of community organizations, including women’s shelters, refugee services, vocational projects and homeless shelters. Bikes are refurbished and classes are taught at the Bikery, a shop collectively run by Cycles of Change.
The group also runs a large bicycle-education program in East Bay schools. The Drive Your Bike program is a six-hour course in urban bike riding. Cycles of Change instructors visit two or three schools a week to teach students skills from fitting a helmet to changing lanes in traffic. Program coordinator Sean Delizo says, “The most rewarding part of the job for me is teaching youth throughout the East Bay the independence they can gain from riding a bike, along with the social and environmental impact they can make.”
Concord Bike Tent
Bike Concord’s community bicycle shop called The Bike Kitchen is located in a shipping container by the baseball field at Olympic High School, 2730 Salvio Street. Bike Concord teaches bike mechanics to high school students and offers earn a bike programs to people in the community who need bicycles. Donations of parts and bicycles are always welcomed. The bike kitchen hours are somewhat random, but it is open on Thursdays from 11:00 to 3:30pm. Email: info@BikeConcord.org
Bike Concord also runs a pop-up repair shop called The Bike Tent, which operates at the Todos Santos Plaza farmer’s market in Concord from on Thursdays from May to October. They like to say “If the farmers are selling vegetables, Bike Concord is fixing Bicycles!”. The Bike Tent is cancelled at the moment due to the pandemic but Bike Concord is looking forward to bringing it back to the community soon.
Street Level Cycles
Street Level Cycles, in Berkeley’s Aquatic Park, combines youth vocational training with a full-service community bike shop. On any given weekend the shop bustles with Berkeley students looking for a used bike, teenagers building up single-speeds and patrons of all stripes digging through bins for just the right replacement part.
During the rest of the week, the shop morphs into an after-school internship program for low-income youth to learn bicycle repair and customer service. As interns progress and demonstrate bike knowledge, they can be scheduled to work during shop hours, helping community members learn to repair their bikes. Of the six current full-time staff members, four are former interns, a number that could increase with a second Aquatic Park location in the spring.
Spokeland
After four years of sharing space in A Place for Sustainable Living, community bike shop Spokeland has moved into its own space in West Oakland. In conjunction with the move, Spokeland now offers bicycle tuneups for a fee in addition to low-cost do-it-yourself shop hours. They have two programs, the Spokeland Standard and Wrench Together: Drop off your bike for service or participate in Wrench Together, where a Spokeland core member teaches a student one-on-one to fix their bike.
A full list of East Bay bike shops offering mechanics classes can be found at BikeEastBay.org/mechanics. If there is another East Bay community bike shop we should add to our list please let us know!