Baltimore Goods
Best Bike Shop
Velocipede
Published: September 21, 2011
4 W. Lanvale St., velocipedebikeproject.org
OK, OK, Velocipede isn’t technically a bike shop, a place where you can walk in and ask for a part in exchange for money and someone hands it to you, or someone comes and fixes your bike in back while you read a magazine up front. You can buy stuff, sure, like a used bike. That’s how Velocipede pays its bills. But that’s not the root of what Velocipede is. You might say that the best bike shop is the one that you can afford. And plenty of people can’t afford the usual sorts of bike shops: Bike shit can be expensive. Not like car-expensive, but still enough so that riding a bicycle until it falls apart in rusty pieces becomes a viable option for some folks. And we know shops around here will work with people, and money shouldn’t really be a barrier and, besides, it’s still nothing compared to car maintenance. But a goal of Velocipede is empowerment: If you can fix it yourself for free, you’ll keep riding a bike (a safe bike). Which means a lot in a big city where a lot of people don’t actually have a lot of money. Way cool also: Velocipede took its mission out to the neighborhoods, offering free clinics at area schools during the summer. Biking is a cause to be advanced, and it’s hard to think of a better way.
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