Hartford had a problem: the last bike shop closed in 2014.

Bikes held a lot of promise for the city. Connecticut’s capital has the lowest rate of car ownership in the state – with 31.5 percent of households without vehicles – and an unemployment rate double the state average. Bikes could connect those households to jobs, and teens to after-school programs.

But without a bike shop, this couldn’t happen. “The old bike shop wasn’t even reliably open before it closed,” Tony Cherolis, Transport Hartford’s coordinator said.

The solution: a community bike shop, operated by students.

BiCi Co. – short for Bicicleta y Comunidad, bicycles and community – is a bike shop cooperative hosted by Transport Hartford, a division of the Center for Latino Progress (CLP). Thanks to a partnership with Hartford Public Schools and Capital Workforce Partners, BiCi Co. is almost entirely staffed by high school students and young adults in paid internships.

At the heart of BiCi Co. is community learning – teaching interns how to fix old bikes and integrate bicycle transportation into their lives, and then helping the community utilize these bikes. 

Aside from the internship program, BiCi Co. also offers an eight-week “Earn a Bike” course, where teens learn the basics of bike mechanics, bike safety skills, and Hartford’s bike history. At the end, they get to keep a bike they fixed, as well as earn bike lights, a helmet, and a lock – all for a $20 registration fee.

Brandyn Mercado, a high school senior, first joined BiCi Co. through Earn a Bike and has been a paid intern in the shop for the past year. He bikes everywhere: “to school, to work, and for groceries,” he said. “Working on bikes has made me think about majoring in engineering.”

It’s not just Brandyn. “We’ve had two graduates go on to engineering programs in college,” said Joseph Dickerson, BiCi Co.’s manager. “Older siblings go through Earn a Bike and then a few years later their younger siblings follow because they think it’s cool. Going to the Earn a Bike classes and then working here sets up the expectation for kids that if you show up and do good work, more opportunities will come from that.”

Besides helping interns develop professional skills, BiCi Co. creates bike commuters. “For a lot of our kids, getting a car isn’t in their cards financially, and taking the bus regularly is also expensive,” said Dickerson. “So when they have a solid, reliable bike, they use it. They stick with their bikes because it makes their lives less expensive and easier, and they’re not worried about getting a ride from a caregiver.”

“They stick with their bikes because it makes their lives less expensive and easier, and they’re not worried about getting a ride from a caregiver.”

There’s also BikeLife – an annual festival on the last Saturday of Hartford schools’ spring break. “Any student who takes a two-hour bike safety course, in five locations around the city, gets an upcycled bike, lock, and light at the festival,” Cherolis said.

The bike shop funds itself, too. Every bike in stock is donated and then repaired by the interns. While BiCi Co. doesn’t turn a profit, it makes enough to keep operating.

BiCi Co. is branching out to help adults, not just teens, use bikes for transportation: Bikes for Jobs is similar to Earn a Bike (participants get a bike, helmet, lock and lights for $20) but is aimed at helping adults reach jobs all over the Hartford region, where over 60 percent of Hartford residents work in the surrounding suburbs, according to Cherolis. 

“We had one graduate of Bike for Jobs who dropped off his bike for a quick repair on his way to a job interview,” Dickerson said. “He said it made his commute to West Hartford so much easier.”

“Our goal is to improve community mobility and quality of life,” Cherolis said. “Biking is one of the most efficient, low-cost, healthy, independent ways for people to get around.”

BiCi Co.’s interns know this. “Earn a Bike made me want to keep bike riding my entire life,” Brandyn said. 

Mobility Lab is a media sponsor of Transport Hartford’s Multimodal and Transit Summit on November 19th. Check it out if you’re in the area!