Giving Thanks to Our Local Bike Shops

With Thanksgiving fast approaching–followed by Black Friday and Small Business Saturday–we wanted to take this opportunity to thank the many area bicycle shops that support WABA by providing a discount to our members. These shops choose to forego revenue to help support our growth, our advocacy efforts, and our cycling education and outreach programs. But local bike shops are more than just retailers.  As our maintenance and repair providers, they are a critical component of the bicycle network and necessary to the continued growth and mainstreaming of cycling.  Yes, you can probably order that bike or part or tool on the internet.  But when you have trouble putting things together properly, when something is rubbing or squeaking and you can’t figure out what it is, when your bike just isn’t stopping like it should, when you want to talk to an experienced person, or when you want to test a few things and see what works best for you before you buy: You need a local bike shop. One of the primary components of our East of the Anacostia program this year was a “mobile bike shop” run by the Bike House–a local co-op that is not a bicycle retailer–because bike repair services are difficult to access for many in that area.  That difficulty of access will only be alleviated if cyclists continue to support local bike shops. A full list of the shops that support WABA is available HERE. To our local bike shop partners, thank you for your support.  We hope that some of the revenue you leave in the pockets of our members in order to support us will find its way back to you this holiday season, and that you will be keeping us rolling for years to come.