Original article [1] published in The Triangle Business Journal [2], 6/13/08

By: Catarina Saraiva

Pollution-free travel is goal of Carrboro bike nonprofit

CARRBORO - Chris Richmond knows a thing or two about bicycles. And on Sunday afternoons, he and a team of volunteers put that knowledge to work, repairing bikes brought in by Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents. Along the way, Richmond and friends are popularizing a pollution-free form of transportation in the Triangle.

Richmond is director of The Recyclery, an organization that supplies residents of both towns with refurbished, donated bikes in exchange for volunteering time.

"We have the tools, and we have advice, and we can help folks fix up their bikes," says Richmond.

A carpenter and plumber during the day, Richmond volunteers time to The Recyclery, spending around 24 hours every week on the job, depending on the time of year.

Town officials in Chapel Hill and Carrboro say the organization benefits the community.

"I think we're really proud as a town to be the home of The Recyclery," says Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton. "It's a great opportunity for all sorts of people of any income level to get a bicycle."

The Recyclery is part of the umbrella organization Students United for a Responsible Global Environment, a non-profit, Carrboro-based advocacy organization.

Tucked into a bright green, wooded corner of Carrboro is the rough-around-the-edges wood barn that serves as the organization's main building, which sometimes overflows with old bicycles awaiting a makeover.

The weekly Recyclery workshops, held every fair-weathered Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., attracts riders eager to learn how to fix up a bike. Bicycle owners can bring their own bikes in to learn repairs. To "pay" for lessons, people have to then spend 15 hours teaching others to fix their bikes.

"It seems like a fairly appropriate type of function to have in this town, where folks are certainly conscious not only of their transportation choices but their reuse of things," says Adena Messinger, transportation planner for the town of Carrboro.

Since opening in 2000, the program has given away 720 bikes and is looking to dole out on average about 100 per year, Richmond says.

The Recyclery gives further through its Blue Urban Bikes program and by periodically traveling to low-income neighborhoods to fix bikes for children.

The BUB program has established six hubs - with a few Carolina blue-painted bikes available at each location - around Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The program is also expected to add three locations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. Members of the program, who pay a $10 yearly fee, can rent out bikes for 24 hours.

Besides volunteer opportunities and keeping the community posted on cycling events through its Web site, the organization offers in-depth mechanics courses on Mondays, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

"It's community building as much as bike building," says Richmond.

The Recyclery attracts as many as three dozen people for the Sunday workshops. And because Chapel Hill and Carrboro are condensed, bike-friendly towns, choosing biking over driving a car makes sense, Richmond says.

While the Triangle is too spread out to make biking between cities feasible, Richmond says that getting around inside each town during rush hour is much faster on a bike than in a car.

However, these days, the bike program has bigger worries than the Triangle's sprawl. The land the Recyclery calls home has been put up for sale by its owner, and if it sells, the organization will likely have to relocate.

But Richmond says that with rising gas prices, interest in biking is going to increase.

"The cycling culture is pretty alive and thriving," he says.

Original article and photo [3]