By Zak Brown ( Contact )
Monday, August 6, 2007

Name: Rich Points

Occupation: Director of Community Cycles in Boulder

What to know: Community Cycles is a non-profit group involved with several organizations in Boulder County. The group offers bike maintenance workshops and also runs an earn-a-bike program, where you can work 15 hours in the shop and earn a free bike. There is also a showroom at the shop, where refurbished bikes are sold at discounted prices. You can reach the shop, located at 2805 Wilderness Place Suite 1000, by calling 720-565-6019 or visiting www.communitycycles.org.

GO:�How did you guys decide to do something like this and come together and make a run at it?

�RP:�It was kind of cofounded by me and my girlfriend, Wanda Pelegrina. And we had tried to set up something like this in the past and could never really get it off the ground because we didn't have a space. So we had tried it without a space a few times and it kind of failed. And then we met up with Anthony Hannagan, and he had found a spot in north Boulder. When I met him, it was right around the time I also met Colleen Speno, who was talking about sending bikes to Africa. So I called a meeting of the four of us and we sat down and talked and said, �We all have these common interests and similar goals,' and we decided to join forces.

�GO:�You said you tried to start it before and it didn't work. But did it always seem like when you were trying to get it going that there was a market and an opportunity to make an impact in town?

�RP:�Absolutely. One thing we were addressing was the myth that bicycles are just for recreation only, which they're not. So there was that, and primarily reaching out to the lower-income communities, and making sure they were getting the bikes and using them. And primarily the reason for that interest was that the cost of a car to own and operate can be anywhere from $3,000-$8,000 a year in terms of cost and maintenance. So if we can get low-income people out of cars and get them to ride bikes, there would be more cash flow for them.

�GO:�Do you notice it empowers people when they bring in bikes to work on them and learn how to work on them, that it gets people really going, too?

�RP:�Yeah, that's kind of our main push, to teach bike maintenance. We work in a lot of the lower-income neighborhoods in town, and this is true anywhere, but a lot of times we'll just find bikes with flat tires, and the bike gets parked. So just getting knowledge as basic as that really gets people out riding.

�GO:�Have you worked with a lot of kids and families?

�RP:�Our pilot program has actually been in the San Juan del Centro low-income neighborhood, and we worked with them last year in the after-school program. We basically did the earn-a-bike program, but it's a lot more structured than the adult version of it. So they're getting the same things as the adults and in the end have that knowledge and earn a bike as well.

�GO:�How do you guys get the money to do a lot of this work?

�RP:A lot of it is just cash donations, but our main cash flow comes form bike sales. We do sell refurbished bikes. And that's part of our mission as well, to make bikes affordable to everyone. I'm standing in the show room right now and we have bikes that start at $80, and these are all name-brand bikes.

�GO:�For you guys to do all this stuff, have you grown at the right rate?

�RP:�Yeah, it's been a busy year and a half. And we're still growing. One of our recent programs is, and this is a fundraising thing, is business workshops. We bring in 10-12 employees and have a workshop with them through tuneups for three or four hours at a time. When they're finished they take a three or five bikes back to their workpalce to be a small bike fleet.

�GO:�There's kind of the perception here in Boulder that everybody rides a bike, and everyone knows everything about a bicycle, and that's really not the case.

�RP:�Definitely not the case. This fall we're working with the safe ride to school program, where we're working with four schools in the city and helping the kids and the parents get bikes and find ways to and from school.

�GO:�So how do people get in the workshops. Do they just call or look at your Web site?

�RP:�For the earn-a-bike program, you can just drop in during shop hours and get started, and we'll plug you in to whatever is going on during that day. And it's as simple as that.