Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles is one of the longest running community bike shops in the country, having been in operation for around thirty years.
Our primary feature is Open Shop, during which anyone in the community can come in and use our tools, space, and expertise to repair their bike for free. Use of our carefully refurbished parts requires a pay-what-you-want donation.
Additional opportunities around Open Shop include:
Earn-a-Bike: This is the main way RIBs provides bikes to the community. Through years of experience, we've found that the longevity of a bike is greatly extended when sweat equity is applied through fixing and learning to maintain it. Participants can learn to repair (or even build) their own bike. Once it is safe to ride and they’ve paid a pay-what-you-want donation, it is theirs to ride and take home.
Volunteer: RIBs provides volunteer opportunities for adults and youth, individuals and organizations, students and professionals - anyone can volunteer at RIBs, and we always have something that needs doing.
Skillshare: Hanging out during open shop is a great way to learn and reinforce skills of bike maintenance and repair, which can then be shared and strengthened through collaboration with others. Skillsharing is one of the most popular forms of volunteering at RIBs. Everyone can become a bike mechanic!
Bike Sales: RIBs sells affordable completed bikes as a way to diversify funding for our program, with the goal of continually broadening Open Shop hours. All bikes for sale feature a 30 day repair-or-replace warranty against defects.
RIBs is a part of The Southside Community Center:
Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles strives to follow and elevate Southside's mission: "Through forums and activities in education, recreation, political and social awareness, the Southside Community Center is a community resource center. We serve as a vehicle to develop an appreciation for the contributions and presence of those peoples of African descent in the greater Ithaca community and in the larger world community."
For Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles, awareness of abuse and unjust oppression, and the radical, liberating, creative, beautiful and balanced systems required to offset or end abuse and oppression, are one and the same as studying and understanding the nature of the bicycle, and supporting and enhancing its use and reproduction. RIBs loves systems that are sustainable, conscientious, balanced, and liberating :)
All rights reserved.