Salty Spoke Bike Co-op project leader Alyssa Russell, right, accepts a membership check from Joel Hanson.
From left, Alex Bayne, Kobi Weiland, Jake Falvey, Scott Menzies, Charlie Lowell, Alyssa Russell, and Joel Hanson after a week-long bike mechanic training course in August 2019 in Sitka to prepare bike mechanics for the opening of the Salty Spoke Bike Co-op.
The Salty Spoke Bike Co-op will host a soft opening from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Hames Athletic and Wellness Center.
The new bike co-op is a membership cooperative, and the co-op is finalizing its membership program and how it will work.
The Salty Spoke Bike Co-op was formed after Sitka hosted the inaugural Alaska Walk and Bike Conference in early June. In August, Scott Menzies and Charlie Lowell of the Susitna Bicycle Institute in Anchorage came to Sitka to spend a week training several people in bike maintenance and to help them organize the co-op. Scott and Charlie also hosted a one-night bike maintenance workshop.
Co-op bike mechanics will be available to provide technical advice to members about basic repairs, and they will fix up old bikes (such as those sold at the police bike auctions) to sell to raise money to pay for co-op expenses.
The Salty Spoke Bike Co-op also was a recent winner of a $1,000 grant from the Awesome Foundation’s Alaska Chapter. The grant was used to buy tools and other supplies for the co-op.
For more information or to make a donation of money or old bikes (checks should be made out to Sitka Cycling Club), contact Alyssa Russell at aruss947@gmail.com or Doug Osborne at douglaso@searhc.org or 738-8734.
