The Derailer Bike Collective

Today is Tuesday, April 28th. I get off work early so that I can take my bike to this place I’ve been hearing about for a while. I use mainly a bike for transportation, having given up my car a couple of years ago after I noticed that I wasn’t using it and it was costing me way more than it was worth. My road rage is more manageable, too. But, riding a bike daily puts a lot more wear and tear on it than it was made to do.


When a spoke pops out of the back tire making it wobbly and the handlebars slip down the front wheel, I take the bike to the local bike shop across from where I live.


The mechanic fixes the immediate problems but tells me if I want to get the bike back in shape it will cost about the same as just buying another bike. He encourages me to pick something out.

The bikes are nice, but they are about $1000. Plus, I wonder how much of that “it’s getting old, time to replace it with something new” attitude contributes to our hugely out of control consumption problem here in the United States. I decide to hold off on buying a new bike and check out the Derailer bike shop first.


The only other place besides the library where you can get totally great stuff for free is the Derailer Bike Collective. It is as much about building community and recycling bike parts as it is about fixing bikes. When I go check it out myself, I discover that it is also all about empowering women to deal with all the mechanical things we were told growing up we couldn’t do.


The Derailer is a little tricky to find. You go down one street until it seems to dead-end at the railroad tracks, and then you go down into a little dirt hole. The bike shop is hidden away in an urban valley. It has a big dirt yard with a broken down bus out front. There are big industrial looking wooden spools outside that people are sitting on.


At first, there are just two homeless guys and a woman sitting on a bench. Then, a woman with a huge poof of dreadlocks walks her bike down and parks herself on one of the wooden spools.
I am told to put my name on the list that is sitting under a rock. After a minute, I find the rock and add myself to the list of about 5 people already on it.


A little girl is talking loudly as she rolls down the hill toward the dirt yard. She asks nobody in particular when the shop opens. I tell her 4:00. She scoots back up the hill.


A woman rides up, locks her stuff up, and opens the garage door. The “regulars” start to file in, looking at bike parts and making their way to the back where the “new” bikes are located. You are allowed one free bike a year. The homeless woman says that’s what she’s come for. Others, like myself, want help in fixing the bikes they already have. Tuesdays are “Women’s Only” night. The mechanics are all female. When it’s your turn, the mechanic finds you off the list and spends up to 45 minutes at a time showing you anything you want to know.


When my name is called, the mechanic helps me get my bike up into the stem of the bike holder. She shows me how to adjust the brakes and tighten the cable. She says I can use the bike holder and their supplies and tools for as long as I like.


Five minutes after she starts teaching me stuff, the loud little girl comes back down on her bike and totally interrupts us as if I’m not even there. She wants help fixing a flat tire. The mechanic is very patient with her, tries to explain that she needs to wait her turn but when that doesn’t work, tries to help both of us at the same time.


At first I am annoyed. This girl needs to wait her turn like everyone else. But in the end, it is pretty awesome that this little girl fixes her tire all by herself. The mechanic knows her by name, so she must come here a lot. Maybe this little girl needs this place and the attention of the female role models she has found here. Maybe fixing her bike tire is the one way she can feel successful today.


I clean up my bike, find out from the mechanic some of the basics like how to see if the chain or brake pads need to be replaced. Those were the two main items the first mechanic told me I should look at replacing soon. Now I feel like I have control over knowing when my bike needs attention. I also think I can get a lot more life out of it for a lot less money with the Derailer because they will help me install parts for free.


What a totally awesome place. I give them a $25 donation on my way out-much less than I would have paid anywhere else.