If you head a few blocks in any direction out your front door, there’s a good chance you’ll come upon at least one corroding and neglected bike—replete with bent rims, rusted chain, and slashed seat—not worth the trouble of rescuing. That weathered-to-shit 35-year-old Schwinn Varsity that’s probably been puked on during its lengthy stay outside your local dive bar earned its place in the city’s waste stream of bikes long ago, just waiting its turn to get chucked into a dumpster and eventually hauled off by scrappers.
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Believe it or not, Pilsen’s not-for-profit Working Bikes Cooperative (2434 S. Western, 312-421-5048, workingbikes.org) encourages the city’s huddled masses of dilapidated bikes to find their way through the doors of its 20,000-square-foot warehouse. Twelve years ago, co-op founder Lee Ravenscroft, baffled by the city’s volume of discarded bikes, started stockpiling them in the basement of a property he owned.
“Next week, we have Heartland Alliance coming in and bringing 15 refugees,” Gonzalez says. “They have people who they relocate from Burma, Cuba, or Iraq that have no papers, no driver’s license, and no real ties to the Chicago community. We give them a bicycle, a new helmet, and a lock so they can get from point A to point B.”
