Across Canada, community bike shops are bringing biking to the masses! From Edmonton to Ottawa, Calgary to Kelowna these nonprofits are transforming the accessibility and affordability of pedal power, encouraging and facilitating new folks onto the saddle.
At OCB, we are all about showcasing the incredible work our sister organizations are doing. We caught up with Bikechain, a non-profit bicycle shop in Toronto working to make cycling and bicycle repairs more accessible for students at the University of Toronto and the wider community.
Twoey Gray (she/her) from the shop talked to us about their journey and what challenges lie ahead for Toronto’s two wheeled future.
When were you founded, and why?
Bikechain was founded in 2005 by a University of Toronto grad student, ironically named Car!
Car wanted to encourage a cycling culture on campus, and was inspired by the UBC Bike Kitchen and similar DIY workshops emerging around the world. Car knew that the cost of repairing and maintaining bikes was a barrier to making cycling a long-term transportation habit, and wanted to break the cycle of dependence on the commercial cycling industry.
We started offering pay-what-you-can, volunteer-guided bike repairs in a university parking lot, teaching people how to fix their own bikes on a pay-what-you-can basis. Our services quickly became so popular that we expanded into a larger indoor space, and began supporting both students and the wider community.
Today we’re Toronto’s longest running DIY bike space, and operate Monday to Friday with a team of full-time staff and volunteers.
What excites you about riding a bike, and why?
In 2022, I completed a 3000 kilometre solo bike tour from Toronto to Halifax after training for 0 days. The first day of the trip was the longest ride I had ever done. I knew next to nothing about bike maintenance, spent $0 on accommodation, and spent the summer stealth camping or crashing with new friends I met along the journey. The experience cemented my belief in bicycles as instruments for social change.
When I imagined a “cycling community”, I used to think of people like Lance Armstrong – super athletic white guys with million-dollar bikes. Instead, I met punks, runaways, and working people. People who rode to stay sober or sane. The cyclists I encountered were sustainability-minded, active in their communities, and creative in uplifting one another. When we travel by bicycle, we’re at eye level with our neighbours and immersed in our environment, and the effects are contagious.
I thought that journey would teach me a lot about my independence (and it did!) but instead I learned so much about interdependence and how connected we really are.
What are some of the leading challenges facing the Toronto community when it comes to accessible biking? And particularly for the student community?
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has recently introduced legislation to remove existing bike lanes and prevent new bike infrastructure from being built. It’s an absolutely ridiculous premise that even his own party’s research has confirmed will increase traffic and endanger both drivers and cyclists. But it was never about making roads safer or more efficient – it’s another culture war dogwhistle.
For student cyclists, who are a huge demographic at Bikechain, affordability and confidence are major barriers. Youth are under more financial pressure than ever, and the average commercial bike shop is not financially accessible. If nobody taught you how to ride or fix a bike as a young kid, there are precious few spaces to learn as an adult.
How does Bikechain confront these challenges, and what is unique about your approach?
At a traditional bike shop, you drop off your bike, it disappears into a mysterious back room, and you pay $100 for it to reappear fixed. This leaves you in the exact same position if the problem ever happens again. At Bikechain, we disrupt this knowledge gatekeeping by teaching you to fix your bike yourself. We provide the tools and parts, and a mechanic stands with you to help diagnose issues and demonstrate repairs, but the customer is the one actually turning the wrench. Imagine a tool library with expert assistance on deck – that’s Bikechain!
This not only saves cyclists a ton of money, but exercises our right to repair, reduces waste, and supports cycling as an everyday habit.
We work very hard to be a beginner-friendly and inviting space. Every week we hold repair hours just for women and trans people, since a lot of people of marginalized genders have had negative experiences in bike shops. We also rent bikes for free to University of Toronto students, lead group rides around Toronto, and host workshops about cycling topics designed to welcome people into the world of bikes.
When we travel by bicycle, we’re at eye level with our neighbours and immersed in our environment, and the effects are contagious.
How do you think the bike industry and local governments can best support community/non-profit initiatives like yours?
The commercial bike industry should see spaces like ours not as competition, but as institutions that promote and increase cycling as an everyday practice. That is very good for business!
Governments should invest in policies and practices that support cyclist safety, like expanded bike infrastructure. They urgently need to address the cost of living crisis and the climate emergency. The people who get around by bikes are disproportionately impacted by the effects of these. I always say that the average cyclist is not a Tour de France racer – the average cyclist is someone who cannot afford the bus.
I have a dream that one day, climate-cognizant cities will recognize bike workshops as a public necessity and publicly fund them in the way we fund libraries. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a bike kitchen in every neighborhood?
You coordinate a range of programs and initiatives. Based on the learnings from these, what advice would you give to other community bike initiatives?
We’ve had 20 years to develop our range of programming. I am of the belief that it is better to do a few things well than do many things poorly. If you’re volunteer-run or operating on limited resources, it’s important to remember your priorities and deliver on your core mission, and ignore the rest.
I would also pay special attention to the emotional environment of your space. A lot of us haven’t sat down and learned a new skill since we were in school, so learning bike repair can raise a lot of insecurity. Learning to ride a bike as an adult can be incredibly overwhelming, and many people have complex or painful reasons that they never had the opportunity before. Sometimes I hear people say they find bike co-ops intimidating or intense. This is the opposite of what we want! You can have the most knowledgeable team in the world, but a space that is not inclusive ultimately creates more barriers instead of dismantling them.
You work with a range of partners across the city on a variety of programs. What are some of the new partnerships and programs going on this year which you are excited about?
I’m most excited about our group ride calendar! We lead rides every week to help foster the cycling community and promote cycling downtown. We have a very fun bookstore crawl coming up for Independent Bookstore Day, travelling to three local bookshops doing important work in education and advocacy.
We’ll also be offering a number of mobile repair clinics throughout the summer. I’m looking forward to partnering with a number of other rad community orgs to reach people who ordinarily might not know about our space.
If you could recommend one bike route around Toronto for somebody new to the city, what would it be?
I lived for a time on Toronto Island, which is a short ferry ride from downtown. Around 600 people live on the Island, and since cars can’t travel on the ferry, the Island is a bikes-only community. I recommend taking the ferry to the Island and riding around the neighbourhood to see the variety of unique bike trailers, baskets, and tandem setups. It’s not uncommon to see groceries, large furniture, and building supplies travelling by bike cart. It’s a great case study for what a car free Toronto could be like.
Credit for all images belongs to Bikechain