Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eight thirty eight thirteen ten WIBA Madison in the morning.
Not maybe the perfect data ride bike, but I guess
there's never a horrible data ride bicycle. And joining us
this morning in studio is Christy Gofirth with the Bikes
for Kids program, the executive director at Bikes for Kids. Christy,
thanks for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Sean.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It is exciting to have you along and you and
I had a chance last week to talk a little
bit about what you guys are doing for the kiddos
here in town, and it's really it's an amazing program
you have. Let's talk a little bit about an overview
of Bikes for Kids and what exactly it is that
you guys are able to do.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah. Well, we are the largest bike center in the
state of Wisconsin. We've got a twelve thousand square foot
bike center on the south side of Madison. And what
we're doing is we're trying to make sure that everybody
has an opportunity to access bicycles, not just the people
who are fortunate enough to afford them. Bikes are really expensive,
so we distribute bicycles to other nonprofits, public schools, and
(01:03):
municipalities and tribes throughout the state. We've now distributed fourteen thousand,
one hundred and thirty five bicycles.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Wow, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So it's an amazing number because like, if you've ever
been on a group bike ride and two hundred people,
you know, it's like an ocean of bikes. And so
now imagine fourteen thousands. It's pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
And I've got to ask you too, I think for
a lot of folks, you know, that's like our first
taste of freedom when we're kiddos. We get that bike
and you can finally go like go like down the
road and those type of things. And does it help
being here in Madison with bringing in those bikes and
other things. Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Absolutely. We have a lot of bikes in this community,
and so all of our bikes are donated to us,
so we don't buy any bicycles. And so I've estimated
I've done some loose calculations. I think there's probably about
three million bikes circulating in Dane County because we always
every year when we're we're just stepping into our bike
(01:59):
collections season, we do take donated bikes year round, but
in the fall is when people are thinking about their
garage space and you know, tucking away, getting their shovels
out and getting their cars in the garage. So it's
a great time for us to collect bicycles, but we
never see it slow down. It's incredible. Yeah, So the
culture here is huge for us, and we also have
(02:21):
a great transportation infrastructure for bike commuters and anyone who
wants to bike recreationally.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And I want to ask you too.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I know you've got a big event, a big breakdown
event coming and of course I know a lot of
folks here that listened to thirteen ten WIBA. Love, love
the opportunity to help, and love the opportunity to donate.
Your website Bikes four Kids Wi dot org. That's bikes
the word four kids Wi dot org. You can learn
about everything we're talking with Christy about this morning online.
(02:47):
Let's talk about that big breakdown coming up Saturday.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, Saturday, and I oh boy. I let's hope the
weather's great.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
We're hoping to be outside.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
It's looking like it might be seventy and cloudy, which
would be perfect. The big breakdown is from noon to
three at our Bike Center and it is going to
be Dane County's largest hands on recycling event where we're
hoping to tear apart maybe one hundred bikes.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
This kind of work is really physical, it's really hard.
We're working with rusty parts and you know, think of
it as a bicycle rage room. How about that you
want to let off a little steam, come and join us,
and that's Saturday from noon to three. We do ask
that you sign up on the website just so we
know if you're coming.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
And you're right, cor is that price cooer lane.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I speak French, so i'd say koya, But you know.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Right knob Hill, that area.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Exactly right, kind of off Rimrock and between grim Rock
and John Dolan.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
By Madison Teachers Inc. Yeah, big hill there, I was
calling them Outain.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yes, yes, So folks can of course go online and
register for that event. Go to Bikes for Bikes for
Kids wy dot org. So with those bikes and let's
let's I kind of got ahead of myself there, those bikes,
and you mentioned folks cleaning out the sheds and garages
and you know, the kiddos have gone off to college
or maybe they're still growing and you've got one that
(04:09):
they've outgrown.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
What can people do with those? How can they get
them to you?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, So just to note, despite our name, we do
give bikes to all people. It's just most of our grants.
We about thirty six percent of our fundraising each year
is grants and those are often youth developments. But yeah,
you can bring in your bikes. We do love gently
used So one of the things, one of the reasons
(04:32):
people donate bikes is because they're broken and they're costly
to repair. So most of our bikes require about one
hundred and fifty dollars light overhaul. So if you do
have a bike that's pretty pretty broken, if you can
contribute a little bit of funds with that, oh that's huge.
That starts us on the journey of getting that bike
to live on for years and years. But you can
(04:53):
bring your bikes to us so at three five four
koy Yar Lane and you can see the hours on
our website. If they're broken, you can also drop them
off outside of ours because people aren't usually stealing the
broken bikes, so you'll see a little mountain of broken
bikes that we're going to work on on Saturday outside
the door. That's kind of our signage.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yes, you know you're in the right place.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yes. Talking this morning with Christy Goforth. She is the
executive director of Bikes for Kids Again. You can learn
more online Bikes for Kids wi dot org. That's Bikes
the word for Kids Wi dot org. All this information
available to you right up there. You mentioned to you
and you and I were speaking, you said, you've got
a team of really good mechanics and they're the the
(05:36):
bike breakdowns big but also putting them together and making
sure that they're all functional and safe. That's a big responsibility.
You've got some a good team bind you don't.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You absolutely I do. And we're a staff of three.
We're this small but mighty organization. We've served two hundred
and fifty six organizations in the state of Wisconsin so far.
But yeah, my mechanics, you know, these are the skilled trades,
and people don't think bike mechanics being in the trades.
In Madison, we've got nineteen bike shops, so it is
(06:05):
not easy to come by these guys, and so yeah,
I treat them really well. We eat lots of donuts,
bring them smoothies now and again. As much as I
can so, but yeah, we have to make sure. You know,
bikes are vehicles in the state of Wisconsin, and they
have to be safe and reliable and efficient to ride.
So yeah, all of our bikes are really they're pretty
(06:26):
much we call shop quality. So you'll see bike brands
you recognize, right so Track Canada, Specialized, Giant and you know,
I want to mention if I didn't mention already. We
do sell used bikes to the public and we do
repairs for the public. So you're really going to find
some of the best pricing in the city because when
you buy a bike with us, number one, it's been donated.
(06:48):
We've put in, we invested the time and parts to
get them up to up and running. But if it's
usually kind of the higher end bikes that we sell,
because if you buy a bike from us, you could
be buying a bike for three or four people, depending
on that price point, and which is amazing. And that's
why people donate the bike is they want to see
it go for a good cause.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
It's really it's the more I've learned about it, I mean,
really a win win for everybody. It's a great opportunity
for folks, you know, you can get some space in
your garage. You know that your bike's then going to
a good cause. If you're buying a bike, not only
are you getting a great deal and a great bike,
but you're also at the same time helping. It's this
big circle that just seems to seems to be a
great engine to benefit folks. Oh.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Absolutely, thanks for saying that.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
The other thing too, I want to ask about, as
far as you know, maybe folks are not necessarily mechanically
skilled or maybe not have the opportunity to get in
for the breakdown monetary donations and other things as well.
Folks can definitely do that also, can't they.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh absolutely, that's a huge I'll say, we're a really
small budget operation. Two hundred and thirty five thousand dollars.
I know. So it tells you like and it's so
funny because we have no problem getting bike donations because
it's very hard to dispose of a bicycle, especially if
it's broken. Yeah, you're not going to sell that on
marks players. What are you going to do with it?
(08:01):
Are you going to tear the plastic parts off? Are
you going to pay at the metal recycling to have
them take it? Or you can bring it to us.
And this is the circular economy model that we use.
So we were talking about that earlier. If your bike
is broken and it can't be saved, we're going to
take the pedals off. If we can save a tire,
we'll do that. If we can save the grips, whatever
(08:21):
we can take off of that, we're going to use
to refill our partspins so we don't have to buy
new parts. And a lot of the older bikes have
just really high quality parts. We see some of these
newer bikes being a little more you know, just downgraded
metals and such.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
So we were talking too earlier about buying a bike
at Bikes for kids, you guys have those those higher
quality you know, we talk about, you know, budgets, and
of course everybody's got a budget. Maybe you're looking for
a great bike for yourself or for your kiddos, and
you want something that's gonna that's going to last and
can be a you know, whether it's hand down to
the kids and grandkids or donate back to bikes for kids.
(08:58):
The bikes you guys are selling it at that your
shop are definitely going to be those type of.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Bikes, absolutely and we really were a little bit like
a bike museum. We have a little bit of everything.
So if you're looking for a tandem, if you're looking
for an e bike, if you're looking for our Recumbent,
if you're looking for a Uni cycle, or you're looking
for a commuter bike and something more standard, we have
try bikes. We have some incredible like bikes that have
been donated by former Ironman competitors. And I mean so
(09:26):
if you want to get into road biking, but you
don't want to put out a huge investment, this is
a great opportunity to come by and buy a fantastic
bicycle and you can give it a shot. And if
you decide you don't like road biking, you know you're
not out of five thousand dollars. You're maybe out six
hundred dollars or eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I love it, And of course cyberone and get information
on that. Bikes for Kids Wi dot org. That's Bikes
for Kids Wi dot org. Of course they've got the
big breakdown event coming up this Saturday. Always looking for
bike donations. Also if you can make a monetary donation
to them line what about volunteering opportunities?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Gift stuff like that for folks.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Oh, so we do.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
We actually have an amazing they're probably listening right now,
an amazing retirement community of volunteers. So a lot of
these are men women whose wives are kicking them out
of the house and they're like, go to bikes for
kids to get out of here. And then they win
because they get to eat donuts and drink coffee which
they don't use.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
They get on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So there are often all day and we get just
really a broad array of volunteers. We have parents with
kids coming in and that's happening during the day. We
do have some evening nights that will kick up this
probably early November on Tuesday nights. We'll have six to
eight nine pm workshop nights. That's often like the younger
(10:43):
people are working all day and they come out, but
it's like a busy beehive over there all winter long
where we're working all winter to get about two thousand
bikes all refurbished and cleaned up to distribute in March.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
That is great.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And Chris, do you mentioned work. You know, people coming
in after g get like work groups or like other
type of community organizations that maybe volunteer US as a cluster.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh, we absolutely do. We actually give a phenomenal team
building experience. That's something we've really leaned into. And yeah,
this past week we tore apart about thirty bicycles. Seventeen
hundred pounds of material was taken to the metal recycling
plant in just one day. So those were bikes that
(11:28):
were just they couldn't be saved, but we pulled off
whatever parts we could. We need. We're in that mode
right now. We need to make space as we get
ready for a massive number of bikes to come in
through the fall.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
It's a great day to get on in and learn
more as well. If you had on over the website
Bikes for Kids Wi dot org. That's Bikes for Kids
Wi dot org. We'll put a link up to it
also on our social media site. Christy, thank you so
much for joining us this morning. Keep up with the
great work and we'll talk real soon.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Thanks so much, John, I hope to see you all
at the bike center.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And again the website Bikes for Kids Wi dot org.
More of Madison the morning comes. You went next right
here thirteen to ten w like