Cleveland is becoming a good place to bike. Decades of advocacy work have produced a growing network of bike infrastructure from the City, finally almost keeping pace with a ballooning ridership: bike counts on the two main cross-town bridges have doubled each of the past three years.  Also, after decades of out-migration, Cleveland is starting to see rising numbers of downtown residents.

Over the last fifteen years, several new bike shops have opened in the suburbs, but the city of Cleveland itself has had a net loss of shops in that time.  If we are going to keep adding more cyclists (a great thing for the city, our air and water, and the climate!) we will need more bike shops, and more bike mechanics.  And we will need them close to where young new city residents, who like to bike, are choosing to live -- which is, conveniently, also near many of our bike repair deserts, in the neighborhoods with the greatest numbers of necessity cyclists.

To build real resilience in our communities and capacity into our transportation system, we (the people of Cleveland) need bike shops in the city.  To get there, we (the OCBC) are developing an apprenticeship program with performance metrics and meaningful feedback, so we can certify that individuals have the basic skills and experience needed to get work in a bike shop -- or, hopefully, to start a bike co-op in their own neighborhood with surplus bikes and parts from OCBC, and support from our community partner organizations.