The Spearfish Bicycle Collective has been providing safe and affordable bikes to Black Hills locals since 2009.
Carol Lucking, the board president of the Spearfish Bicycle Collective, shared her vision for the organization.
“Our goal is to just help spread the joy of bikes in the community and get more people on safe bikes. So, we’ve got bikes for people who need bikes, and we love helping people learn how to fix their own bikes. We had a group of three of us who we knew we wanted to restart the Bicycle Collective, and we had about 200 bikes in storage and some tools and we weren’t quite sure what to do.”
Lucking mentioned that finding a rental space for the Bike Collective was a bit of a challenge, but a garage-like space fortuitously became available just in time for the collective to launch in 2009.
In June of this year, the Bicycle Collective moved to a new space.
“I love having this available,” said Lucking. “I really love teaching people, especially women, how to work on bikes and using tools. I find a lot of us, we tend to step back and say like, ‘Oh, that’s okay, I don’t need to do it.’ So, I love that in this space we get tools in people’s hands and it’s so much fun to see sort of the things click for people and people come back and tell us like, ‘Oh, because I worked on my trailer last week, I decided to try to fix my thermostat this week.’
So, it’s just really awesome to see that level of empowerment and like, ‘Okay, it’s just a tool. It’s, it’s just a screwdriver. We can all do this.’”
According to Lucking, the community has supported the Bike Collective in huge ways, both by donating and volunteering.
“People donate used bikes to us and then we repair them ourselves and they go out, they go back out for a donation,” said Lucking. “We have suggested donations on our bikes, but also for people who can’t afford bikes, you know, if they want to come and volunteer and help us fix a bunch of flats, we absolutely accept that. Our main goal is getting people on safe bikes.”
For more information about the Spearfish Bicycle Collective, visit their website here.
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