BQ Meets: Brisbane Bikes4Life

At a nondescript Scout Hall in Brisbane’s north, volunteers of Brisbane Bikes4Life, Inc. (BB4L) sort and service a stream of donated bicycles. Under an awning out the front of the shed, nearly half a dozen bike repair stations are a flurry of activity. The shed is full to the rafters with tools, whole bikes, wheels, helmets, and countless boxes labelled for the specific parts they contain. It is far more organised than a hoarder’s paradise, and is more akin to the backroom of a family bike shop where nothing goes to waste.

Some of the bikes are destined for young children and teens, newly arrived people under refugee status, homeless people and others experiencing disadvantage in local communities. Others may travel a lot further – Sierra Leone, Nauru, Tiwi Islands, Normanton, for example. But all will find a second life through the group’s blend of sustainability, repair culture and grassroots social work.

The BB4L crew has operated for the past 10 years with a few intertwined purposes in mind: to help alleviate disadvantage and reduce landfill by rejuvenating used bikes and donating them to disadvantaged people, and in so doing, to provide a place for people to come together for companionship and achieve a sense of contributing to society.

Repairing the bikes is not an issue at all, with skilled hands on deck and a lot of volunteer hours given. But the inflow of donated bikes is large, causing storage issues in the small space available, and finding sufficient new homes for the bikes can also prove challenging at times.

Donated bikes arrive in all kinds of condition. Some are nearly new. Others are missing parts, caked with rust, or barely salvageable. Bikes that aren’t fixable are stripped for parts that can be reused for repairs, and the frames sent to be recycled, along with replaced broken and worn-out parts.

The BB4L volunteer crew meets once a week. “We usually have five to ten volunteers, sometimes a couple more,” said John Gamble from BB4L, “but we could always use more help. New volunteers can join even if they don’t yet have much knowledge about bike repair and maintenance. Training is provided within the BB4L team. We do as much as we can to fix and rehome what comes in.”

Sometimes the group gets unusual donations. “We’ve had recumbents, adult tricycles and a unicycle, as well as a specialized time trial bike and a touring bike that had been ridden across America. “We get lots of adult bikes, some children’s bikes, and all sorts in between,” John said.

You only need to look into the shed that Brisbane Bikes4Life works out of to understand one of their largest challenges. “Storage,” John said. “We get a lot of donations, which is great—but we don’t always have room to store them while we sort through and repair them.” “Sometimes we get offers of 20 or 30 bikes, but we can’t always accept them as we don’t have available space.”

Still, the team keeps going. “It’s a good crew,” said John. “Everyone’s here because they want to help.” Genevieve, another volunteer, added: “It’s great to see bikes get a second life. And it’s nice knowing they’re going to people who really need them.”

“Late last year we provided 28 bikes plus helmets and spare tyres and tubes to a school at Normanton, the Gulf Christian College. About half of the 28 bikes, came from a power company here in Brisbane who built them up as a team building exercise for their apprentices.”

“After they finished that exercise, they passed those bikes onto us, and we’re a grateful recipient because they’re new bikes needing only to be checked over and new homes found. And they do it pretty much every year.”

Of course, sending bikes around Queensland (or beyond) is not cheap, and as a charity it’s not something Brisbane Bikes4Life can fund themselves. The project in Normanton had local support as well as support from a transport company that made it work.

“It was initiated by the school and by the local councillor” confirmed John. “And there is a transport company that goes up from Brisbane to Normanton a couple of days a week, and they were kind enough to transport the bikes for us at no cost. There’s a good relationship between the community and the politician in the community and we were more than happy to take up the opportunity to assist with some bikes.” A similar transport arrangement helped make a consignment of 25 bikes to a school in the Tiwi Islands possible.

Brisbane Bikes4Life also supports skills development, aiming to help people become familiar with bikes and servicing, which can be a way to gain employment. They are currently working to develop a program with Bracken Ridge TAFE, and have been donating bikes to that TAFE as well. But that’s just one program.

“We also support a group called Picabeen, which helps kids who can’t deal with classrooms to gain skills in different areas. As part of that program Picabeen asked us to help the kids learn basic bike skills such as how to set up a bike for safe riding and, you know, service bits and pieces on the bikes, and at the end of each program we give a bike to each of the kids.”

“A couple of the kids showed interest in becoming involved in the bike maintenance area, so we’ve spurred on a little bit of interest.”

The bigger projects that have support around transport can move on a lot of donated bikes, and the more frequent smaller local projects, the transport needs of which are manageable by the group and/or a conduit charity contribute to moving on other bikes. However, the large influx of donated bikes throws up day to day challenges involving storing bikes and finding enough new homes for them. Those are real challenges given the group is overflowing their location at Boondall. It’s a delicate balance to manage – a steady inflow of donated bikes is needed, matched to volunteer capacity, but which also must be matched to finding suitable recipients who would benefit from having a bike. Otherwise, the whole workshop becomes clogged up with too many bikes at one end or the other of the process.

“We are lucky that the group works quite well, and we see ourselves as being like a community workshop, so that we benefit from the interaction with other people. It keeps everyone stimulated as well instead of sitting at home watching television.”

Brisbane Bikes4Life is a very committed group of volunteers who are keeping bikes out of landfill, providing transport to those in need and training, while also being able to offer camaraderie to like-minded community members. But, as mentioned earlier, with major constraints on space could benefit from support in the form of extra space and help in identifying new homes for the fixed bikes.

You can find out more about Brisbane Bikes4Life on their website: https://bikes4life.com.au/brisbane/