A Tale of Two Good Guys

R Community Bikes is pleased to work with No One Left Behind, an organization that assists individuals who supported our troops as interpreters in Afghanistan or Iraq and who now are living in exile in the U.S. due to threats against their lives. Pictured here is one such individual with his two kids and also a new friend, Chris. Chris and a group of his friends found out about NOLB and decided to help out. They are now, as a group, purchasing high end bikes for the interpreters and their families. By doing so, the recipients get better quality bikes and do not have to go through the give away procedures. A small token of one group’s appreciation for another group’s efforts.

Brighton Festival of Ideas 2017

Many thanks to three brave RCB volunteers for helping at the Brighton Festival of Ideas on Saturday the 4th of March.

At this annual event, Brighton students in grades 3 through 8 participate in educational workshops presented by members of the community.

Manish Dixit, Dave Teegarden and Brent Williams entertained three groups of Brighton’s finest with a variety of bike repair skills. This is our third year participating in the event. Thanks, guys. Rave reviews all the way around.

Woody Woodring Appears on WXXI’s Connections


RCB Volunteer Matt “Woody” Woodring appeared today on WXXI’s program Connections with Evan Dawson. Woody talked about his struggles with heroin addiction and his advocacy efforts once he got clean. Click here to hear a recording of the discussion, which addressed Rochester’s heroin epidemic.

Woody was also featured in a recent WROC story on the heroin problem.

Woody won RCB’s 2016 Newbie of the Year Award. Among many other things, Woody has whipped our spare parts room into shape.

New Volunteers, February 2017

We welcomed a new group of volunteers to RCB this past Sunday, February 12. All passed with flying colors after their rigorous 4 hour introduction. We’ve already had one graduate, Liam, come in and get his hands dirty. We await the other 10: Bryce, Dane, Melanie, Gary, Avery, Peregrine, John, Dick, Greg and Carl. Thanks to our trainers for this session, Fred, John S., Mike B. and Glenn T. for your efforts as well.

We hold orientation sessions for new volunteers whenever our waiting list fills up, generally every two to three months. If you’d like to volunteer, please fill out the form on this page or send an email to info@rcommunitybikes.net.

Move Completed

Between 25 and 30 volunteers showed up for the grand finale of our move at Flint Street on January 7. The crew finished up the move in record time, setting a new world record of about 1-1/2 hours. We almost had to go to valet parking in the parking lot. Besides the bikes, we moved many boxes of parts that had been stripped from some of the less-repairable bikes.

The photos only show some of the folks who were there.
 

RIP Harold Feinberg


Long time RCB volunteer Harold Feinberg died on his 85th birthday on January 9 at the Jewish Home of Rochester. Harold was famous at the shop for analyzing problems with bikes in his “thinker” pose. A wonderful guy. Our condolences to his wife Rhea to whom he was married for more than 60 years.

Harold is also fondly remembered at Ft. Lauderdale’s Recyclable Bicycle Exchange, where he volunteered while escaping the Rochester winter. Click here for RBE’s notice or here for a photograph of Harold in Florida.

Harold had a connection to bicycling that long predates his tenure at R Community Bikes. In the 1970s, he and his son manufactured a pioneering ultra-light pedal (1977 Popular Mechanics article). The pedal appears in Speedplay’s Bicycle Pedal History Museum (scroll through to “East Rochester 1970’s”).

Remembrances can be left at Harold’s obituary page at the D&C or the Brighton Memorial Chapel.

RCB will match donations to Rochester Bike Share!

This spring, the City of Rochester will begin the first phase of a bike share program, operated by industry veteran Zagster and funded entirely by corporate sponsorships and private donations.

Reconnect Rochester has launched a fundraising campaign to bring bike-share stations to an area of the city that is unlikely to draw corporate sponsors (the bright green area on the map to the left; click on the map to enlarge).

RCB has pledged to match donations to Reconnect Rochester’s campaign, dollar-for-dollar, up to $4,500. Please consider donating generously to benefit an area of the city greatly in need. $4.500 in donations, matched by a like amount from RCB, will be enough to fund one $9,000 station.

To make a donation, follow this link and click on the big orange “Donate” button. To activate RCB’s match, be sure to select “R COMMUNITY BIKES!!!” under the “Select a Team” dropdown menu on the next page (see image below). Select either Dan Lill or Brent Williams on the “Select a Team Member” dropdown.

2016 was a record-breaking year for RCB!

We’ve tallied up the bicycles we repaired and gave away in 2016, and the final numbers are pretty astounding:

  • 2850 bikes given away, over a hundred more than the previous record set in 2011,
  • 4341 repairs, the first time we cracked the 4K mark.

As we get more and more bikes into circulation, more and more will be in need of repair. Makes sense, eh?