Kean Pedals It: Tour d’ Manchester & Fixing Bikes in Aberdeen

On Sunday September 14th I popped the bike on top of my car (yes, occasionally I do drive places) and headed to Manchester to participate in their community Tour of Manchester, hosted by the Queen City Bicycle Collective.

The weather was beautiful and we utilized four separate rail trails. I feel like I have a much better understanding of how Manchester works from a cycling perspective.

Queen City Bicycle Collective is a 10-year old organization that has similarities to our Seacoast Pedal It Forward program. Both are all about bikes and finding affordable ways to get around Manchester via bicycle. They also support community events and bicycle advocacy.

QCBC operates an open shop where people can sign up for time and learn how to fix their bicycles (SABR’s SPIF program does not offer this).

Getting to know more about QCBC operations aligned with another bicycling experience I had this summer when I went over the pond to Scotland to attend a friend's wedding on the Dee River in Braemar. While there I connected with members of an organization with a similar mission to SABR: Becycle.

Based in Aberdeen, Becycle is volunteer operated as a community bike workshop that provides a free place to access practical help, education, learning and advice for maintaining and repairing bikes. It also lends/leases bikes for a small fee.

After watching the flow of the workshop for a bit, I was ready to get my hands dirty. I primarily helped with disassembly and reassembly of a headset. It was great to meet people with a similar bicycle mission and dig into the repairs. It reminded me just how important this work is and that there are networks of other organizations around the world that are dedicated to making bicycles accessible to all.

Kean McDermott is Vice President of SABR’s Board of Directors