Bikes! Putting the whee! in "wheels."
"Everywhere you turn, cyclists are welding pedals, wheels, and frames into a world that's more efficient--and eccentric" by Della Watson.
A Sierra Club article mentioning Working Bikes in their March/April 2009 Sierra Magazine.
"You know how they say there's no free lunch? Well, there's always a free lunch at Working Bikes," says Raul Gonzalez, the organization's enthusiastic self-described "acquisitions and outreach guy."
Working Bikes was founded in 1998 when Lee Ravenscroft, an engineer by trade, started pulling bikes out of scrap yards, refurbishing them, and donating them locally and overseas. Gonzalez got involved when he saw Ravenscroft working alone to unload hundreds of bikes from a truck and stopped to help. The next thing Gonzalez knew, he and ten others were packaging them for delivery to Angola. That was three years ago.
Today Working Bikes has a steady stream of about 100 volunteers, the ability to ship more than 4,000 bikes per year, and "no bureaucracy," says Gonzalez. Beneficiaries also include Chicago-area homeless shelters and refugees from Iraq, Burma, and Cuba. "Having a bike is a nice beginning," Gonzalez says.
Read the entire article here, scrolling down for the section on Working Bikes ...
