These Fort Worth volunteers are finding new homes for old bikes. Here’s where to get one
In the parking lot of New Riverside United Methodist Church, a 20-foot shipping container is packed floor to ceiling with donated and discarded bikes. Tools line the walls, brakes squeal, an air pump drones. On this summer afternoon, Daniel Guido is hard at work repairing bikes for the Carter-Riverside neighborhood.
Guido’s Neighborhood Bike Shop-in-a-Box provides free repairs and bikes for anyone in the community who wants wheels.
“It means a lot,” said one of Guido’s customers. “Since I was little my dad would get us bikes and we would go a little bit around the neighborhood, ride around a little bit, and it’s good for your body, it’s healthy for you and you can go out with family and friends and have a good time together.”
Guido is the founder of the Bike Gangs of Fort Worth. In 2016, he started fixing bikes for kids out of his garage and found the Park Glen Bike Gang, a group of families and volunteers who fix and maintain bikes, give rebuilt bikes away and schedule community rides. Guido also helps other neighborhoods start their own bike gangs.
The shop is completely self-contained, totally free and volunteer driven. It is meant to take the service of repairing bikes to where people live and work.
“If you put a bike shop in every neighborhood in Fort Worth, then no one has to go very far to get a free bike or free bike repair,” Guido said.
Guido gets his bikes from city-operated waste drop-off stations. He and his team of volunteers fulfill bike requests in the order they receive them.
A bigger plan
Guido’s plan is much larger than one 20-foot shipping container. Eventually, he wants to install shipping containers filled with bikes in neighborhoods across the city.
Carter Riverside’s bike shop will help determine if his plan is possible.
The shop opened May 15. It is open only from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays to accommodate the neighborhood volunteer mechanics who donate their time.
Once the shop is stable, Guido will give it to the neighborhood.
“We want to let the neighborhood staff it with volunteers, eventually, and operate it, keep it clean and keep it in good working condition,” Guido said.
Guido spent the past year working on getting the Neighborhood Bike Shop-in-a-Box up and running.
“I thought it up around August 2020,” he said. “With rides on hold due to COVID we turned attention to infrastructure and logistics of getting and keeping more bikes out on the streets under Fort Worth residents’ butts,” Guido said.
Clayton Paslay of Steel Containers.net in Burleson donated a container and A Better Fab metal fabrication shop in Weatherford installed the skylights, doors, shelving and a clothes hanger-style hanging bike rack system for efficient bike storage. The fabrication shop donated some of the materials and offered a reduced labor rate.
City council member Cary Moon and city officials helped with permitting.
When the team needed to find a neighborhood to host the shop, three stepped up, Guido said, and Carter-Riverside seemed to be the best fit.
The New Riverside United Methodist Church became the host to Guido’s first bike shop in a box.
“Riverside United Methodist church said, we’d like to host you,” Guido said. “There’s no cost. They don’t charge us any rent or fees. There’s no insurance required. They just let us do our thing.”
The church also plans to help support the shop by supplying parts, helmets, and volunteering at the shop.
“There’s a lot of people here at the church that are willing to donate, to buy the accessories that are needed for the bikes, and I think some of our members may be wanting to help out by fixing the bikes,” said the lead pastor at New Riverside United Methodist Church, Armando Alvarado.
What’s next
After nearly a year of working with the city to get approvals and the community to transform the shipping container into a shop, Guido and his team are “off to the races,” he said.
Since the shop’s grand opening on May 15, about 10 to 20 customers have visited each Sunday. The team has repaired or given away 14 bikes, and has 34 bikes in process or on the waiting list.
“Each time we’ve been open we’ve had neighbors stopping by, which is perfect,” said Guido. “We need for the word to spread organically, and it’s been fun when more than one neighbor shows up and there’s kind of a buzz about it.”
Guido and the Bike Gangs of Fort Worth have given 1,910 bikes to Fort Worth neighborhoods since they began repairing, trading-up and giving away bikes in January 2017. On Saturday, Guido plans to give 70 bikes to kids requested by the Samson Ridge and Samson Bluffs apartments in Lake Worth. The group is poised to celebrate the 2,000 bike milestone within the next two weeks.
“Whatever your thing is, what do you think it looks like to build community and love your neighbor? Just take your thing and then do your thing,” Guido said. “That’s how you build a community you want to live in, build a neighborhood you want to live in.”