On Saturday, February 9th, we hopefully made a tiny piece of history. Bicycle Coalition volunteers got together with community members from ACLAMO Family Centers to assemble boxed bikes that will become the “startup capital” for BICICLAMOS, a new slow-roll bike club. The name — chosen by the ACLAMO community — is a combination of the names of our two organizations, and has the added bonus of sounding like “let’s ride our bikes!” The event was also a potluck, because who doesn’t love homemade tacos?
Leonard Bonarek and Brenda Hernandez Torres had modest goals for the day.
We kept telling each other, “We’re here to build community first, bikes second.”
In the end, we got to do both. Several community members helped fix up the bikes, and Brenda did a fantastic job of keeping other folks engaged with fun group activities. The food was another highlight. ACLAMO folks know how to eat, and brought their A-game to this event.
Attention: This is going to be awesome!
As reported in an earlier blog post, these bikes were generously donated by bikeshare company Zagster, and Neighborhood Bike Works, and we’re very appreciative! A few of the bikes were new, and just needed assembly and adjustment. Others were rather heavily used, and needed serious work. Our worker bees did a great job of both. Each time Leonard successfully test rode a bike, he came back into the center ringing bike bells, and everybody cheered.
Before and after!
Next step: getting ready for Opening Day for Trails on April 13, when we will have our first ride on the Schuylkill River Trail, which runs right through the ACLAMO community. After that, our hope is that leaders will emerge to take the helm of BICICLAMOS, making it a completely independent organization.
Interested in learning more about BICICLAMOS? Email leonard@bicyclecoalition.org