The public “fix-a-thon” put maintenance within reach of cyclists seeking repairs, while championing Cleveland bikers’ vision of a greener, more accessible method of urban transportation.
An overcast day in early May brought over a dozen volunteers and more than 40 Cleveland cyclists seeking quick bike fixes and new helmets to the hardwood gym inside the Cudell Recreation Center off West Boulevard. Those who entered with busted brakes and rust-chewed handlebars left with cycles that were cleaner, newer and safer for traversing Cleveland.
“This is a method for getting more butts on bikes,” Jenna Thomas explained on behalf of Bike Cleveland (BC).
Thomas serves as manager of advocacy and policy for the urban biking advocacy agency, a local nonprofit which secured a $2,500 Neighborhood Connections grant via Neighbor Up to retain OCBC’s services among other event arrangements.
“I think one of the biggest goals of the committee is to get more people on bikes and more people riding in the community,” she said. “That way, we create more demand for better infrastructure.”
The committee Thomas referenced is Bike Cleveland’s Better Streets Committee serving the Detroit-Shoreway and Cudell neighborhoods. It’s one of six such groups comprised of resident cyclists who regularly comb their neighborhoods for bicycle hazards and then meet monthly to discuss them at BC’s headquarters.
Besides the Cudell group, peer committees of roughly 10 to 15 members do similar work in neighborhoods like West Park and Jefferson, Old Brooklyn, Buckeye-Shaker and North Collinwood. According to Thomas, a committee dedicated to Tremont and Ohio City will begin meeting in the coming weeks.
Burrowed betwixt the Detroit-Shoreway and Cudell neighborhoods, the venue served as a gathering place for cyclists of many ages with hardware needing repair.
Volunteers, prepped in both bike advocacy and repair, first formed a helpful arrangement of work stations. They spent the next three hours operating the gym as a bike workshop: removing bolts and clipping brake cables to reach corroded lines and undo years of caked orange rust.
Pedaling partners
While Bike Cleveland brought tables, chairs and helmets and generally pipelined visitors through the gymnaisum, the Ohio City Bicycle Co-Op (OCBC) was responsible for lugging in the volunteer labor force as well as the bike stands and components necessary for the event. Both stationed on Cleveland’s west side (founded in 2003 and 2010, respectively), the groups’ collective presence at the gym reminded some volunteers of OCBC’s and BC’s shared lineage while helping to further their missions as Cleveland’s premier bike nonprofits.
“The more people you see on bikes, the easier it’s going to be for everybody to get on bikes,” OCBC executive director Jim Sheehan said while stationed alongside a bike stand. “I think we’re getting really close to that point where folks are like ‘I should do that, it looks cool.’”
Sheehan, who helped found the co-op and aided in the incorporation of Bike Cleveland, maintained a positive attitude while sorting through components that OCBC had hauled to Cudell from its workshop on Merwin Avenue. The executive director couldn’t pin down a reason, but he said Cleveland’s cycling population has ballooned noticeably since he worked as a bike messenger in the ‘90s.
Sitting in the belly of Irishtown Bend, towards the back of a former warehouse that shares a view of the Cuyahoga River with Rivergate Park and Merwin’s Wharf, the Ohio City Bicycle Co-Op sees roughly 50 unique volunteers per year. That is per OCBC Volunteer Coordinator Dani O’Sickey, who joins Sheehan as one of the organization’s four part-time staffers.
“I think (volunteerism) really helps to build the community of folks biking,” O’Sickey said during some down time amid the repair session. “We see a lot of different approaches to biking in a regular day. We see a lot of people who aren’t used to biking every day and come from different environments. Some people bike in from their neighborhood and we have other folks who bike in from Kent or Akron and volunteer.”
Also lending repair experience to the event was Alex Nocce, co-owner and mechanic at Joy Machines Bike Shop at 2605 Detroit Ave.
“I probably worked on 10 bikes,” Nocce said. “Tires are very common (fixes along with) brakes, adjusting gears … making sure things are aligned and tight is always important. I really like these events because you’re working nonstop to fix bikes. It’s almost like a game for a mechanic.”
Pedaling forward
Bike fix-a-thons serve as great nexuses for community engagement and hands-on repair, according to Thomas, but they’re just one outing in Bike Cleveland’s toolbox of events set to celebrate and uplift cyclists around the calendar. While BC has been hosting the repair sessions throughout the city for over a decade, one-off happenings such as Bike to Work Day on May 17 and the Cranksgiving food drive held in November incentivize continued bike riding with others.
May also initiates Slow Roll Cleveland season. The social group hosts weekly bike rides that start at 7 p.m. each Monday in locations ranging from the Waterloo Arts District to Jefferson Park.
Shifting gears
Sheehan has headed operations at OCBC since the group installed stands and started accepting bikes at its initial headquarters: the former Fifth Third Bank branch at 3500 Lorain Avenue. He oversaw the nonprofit’s move to a space on the west side of Columbus Road the following year and a subsequent transition to OCBC’s current space on the opposite side of the street, but Halloween 2025 will mark his last day after helming the organization for 22 years.
The executive director has yet to select a successor, but it’ll likely be someone who will continue with OCBC’s overt purpose: fixing bicycles so people have clean and inexpensive transportation options.
“Our real goal is to get more bike mechanics trained up to be able to fix enough bikes, so that when the bike boom hits, which it will one of these days, we have enough people,” Sheehan explained.
Per Sheehan, the major issue is that salaries generally range low for most full-time bike mechanics, creating a shortage of fixers.
While Nocce’s shop and Blazing Saddle on the 7400 block of Detroit Avenue will continue serving those in the Detroit-Shoreway and Cudell with repairs and more intensive custom builds, Cleveland Scene reported in March that Fridrich Bicycle at 3800 Lorain Ave. and Fleet Bike Shop in Slavic Village would both be ending decades-long tenures.
First opened in 1883, Fridrich is a tad east of Cudell and the Shoreway, but served Ohio City residents with entirely new cycles as well as affordable repairs and basic parts. With industry analysts hedging bets as to whether 2024 will continue trends set in preceding years, it’s possible that other local bike shops could feel the strain of the overall consumer economy.
As the Ohio City Bicycle Co-Op maintains Clevelanders’ cycles and Bike Cleveland continues fighting to repair and improve the city’s streets for new and recently repaired machines, donating to both OCBC and BC will aid both organizations in spinning their wheels and wrenches.
Readers looking to bring their cycles up to speed for the summer can register for Metro West’s Stockyard Bike-a-Thon at the H. Barbara Booker Elementary School Garden behind Clark Elementary School at 2121 West 67th Street. For recurring repair opportunities, cyclists can aim their helmets at Metro West’s calendar and OCBC’s blog to learn about upcoming events like fix-a-thons or volunteer with the co-op to earn credits for new components or an entire bicycle. Once bikes are in tune, Bike Cleveland’s cycling events calendar shows Cleveland residents when and where to use them and how to find BC’s Better Streets Committee meetings.
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