Purple Bike Coalition (PBC)

Alexandra Griffin ’19 

The Purple Bike Coalition is a student run community bike shop that seeks to promote access to bicycles, cycling safety, and sustainability.  Our work is made possible by the Center for Environmental Studies, which pays for our student mechanics and College Council, which provides funds for tools and supplies.

The shop is open 2-3 three evenings a week and anyone can come in to fix their bike and learn bike repair.  We’re a “do it yourself” bike shop, so mechanics work with people to fix their bikes, providing knowledge, advice, and access to tools.  Students who work in the bike shop are always in the process of learning and teaching one another, too.

 

We had a wonderful year this year—we fixed hundreds of bikes, rented out around 40 bikes to students in the fall and spring, and taught basic skills in maintenance and repair, like fixing flats, cleaning chains, and adjusting brakes.  We also hired four new first year students as mechanics—Emily Sun, Ricardo Torres-Garzon, Nelly Lin-Schweitzer, and Alejandro Flores Monge! We continued to maintain a collection of recycled bicycle parts that people can use to replace broken parts on their bikes.  We also rescued several abandoned bikes for repair and for parts, which would have otherwise been thrown out.

This year, we have also been working on expanding our outreach beyond the college community. In the fall, we did free bike repair at the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation Repair Cafe at Sheep Hill.  In the spring, we also held a basic bike repair skills workshop in North Adams in conjunction with the Mass in Motion initiative with the North Berkshire Community Coalition and a basic bike repair and helmet-fitting workshop for students and families at Clarksburg Elementary School. We’re excited about continuing to work with the Mass in Motion initiative in the Berkshires in future years—promoting access to safe bicycling and bike repair skills as one part of making alternative transportation in the Berkshires more accessible, affordable, equitable, and sustainable.

More information about the PBC can be found at sites.williams.edu/bikes