Bikes N’ Roses

Like all retail operations, these shops have faced challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic due to health concerns, labor shortages, and supply chain issues.

While business as usual is on hold for nonprofit community bike shops, they are adapting and changing their services to address their missions in this times of crisis.

Today at a ribbon cutting for curb-protected bike lanes on 31st Street by the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mayor Emanuel and transportation commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld elaborated on the city’s previously announced plan to build 50 more miles of bikeways by 2019.

Last Thursday evening in a tidy storefront at the bustling, multicultural intersection of Lawrence and Kedzie in Albany Park, ten teenagers were hard at work wrenching on bikes as pop-punk played through someone’s laptop. One boy scrubbed the headset of a green BMX with a wire brush. Nearby a girl was installing a derailleur cable on a white mountain bike. Another boy in a striped knit cap was installing a crank on a navy-blue road cycle. There was an atmosphere of intense, professional concentration, broken up occasionally by exchanges of repair tips and good-natured ribbing.