He’ll have much more room in the new space.
(Photo: Braking Cycles)

How much good can bikes do under just one roof?

How about a coffee shop up front where homeless and at-risk youth learn job skills and a bike shop in the rear where they learn bike repair skills? That’s what Braking Cycles and Bikes for Humanity PDX have planned for a new venture coming to SE 33rd and Powell.

We shared the story of Braking Cycles in 2014, right when social service worker Rhona Maul was starting up the new venture. Braking Cycles is a project of Transitional Youth, a Beaverton-based non-profit that helps homeless and at-risk youth integrate into the community. For the past three years Maul has been working to make her dream of having a stand-alone shop for the program a reality. Now she’s just $12,000 away and has launched a crowdfunding campaign to get there (watch the video below).[Read more…]

Central City Concern tenant Allen Roberts and Bikes for Humanity volunteer Frank Wong work on a donated bike that Roberts will soon call his own.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

One of Portland’s longest-standing volunteer bike nonprofits is struggling to survive the departure of its founder and full-time volunteer staffer.

As a gesture to show “our commitment to the community,” Bikes for Humanity is holding a free “tune-up-athon” today at the corner of Ladd and Division, moving to the People’s Co-op farmer’s market (Southeast 21st and Tibbets) at 2 p.m.[Read more…]

Central City Concern tenant Billy Murrell works with Bikes for Humanity Volunteer Holly Kvalheim to build the bike that’ll become his.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Down the elevator into the basement of an Old Town housing project, around three corners and under the fluorescent lights of one of the six beige rooms labeled “storage,” Mark Sando was walking in a more or less constant loop around the part of the floor that wasn’t carpeted two feet deep in broken bicycles.

“We don’t need to loosen this enough to slide this up and down, we only need to loosen it enough to rotate the handlebars to the right alignment,” he told the ex-con leaning over one of the room’s four workstations, who nodded in understanding.

[Read more…]