Bikes and Brunch Fundraiser: An Interview with the Executive Director of Bikes Together

Before the Bikes and Brunch fundraiser event on May 4 at the Forney Transportation Museum, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Abby Bohannan, executive director of Bikes Together, to talk all things bikes, brunch, and the importance of community.

What does Bikes Together do?
Bikes Together provides a lot of cost-flexible options for people to get or maintain a bike and learn bike mechanics. We also have quite a few programs to reduce (equity) barriers for folks to feel comfortable and confident in a mechanic space. We have a Gender Equality Mechanics (GEM) night, which is open to women, girls, trans people of all identities, and nonbinary folks. 

What is Bikes and Brunch, and what can attendees expect from the event?
Bikes and Brunch is our biggest fundraiser of the year with all the proceeds going towards supporting Bikes Together, which is a bicycle nonprofit in Denver, to support programming, and it will be at the Forney Transportation Museum on May 4. There are a bunch of different activities. We have a scavenger hunt. We have a craft table. Part of what we do is we recycle things. We recycle usable parts from bikes. And then that extends to an overall crafty approach to things.

(Attendees) will be making safety gear out of bike parts. Last year they made some jewelry and different things. They’re appealing to kids and adults and geared around safety, around finding creative ways to repurpose things  instead of having them end up in a landfill. We also have a silent auction, so folks that want to support do not have to attend the event. We have tons of cool prizes from all over Denver, lots of small businesses. We have a DJ spinning some records, and then we have a raffle giveaway. It’s gonna be catered by Convivio, which is a small, Guatemalan-women owned business, and there will be mimosas and all kinds of brunch-y beverages.

It can’t be brunch without Mimosas. Can you tell us a bit about the venue that Bikes and Brunch will be held at?
Forney Transportation Museum. It’s this amazing museum full of all of these old cars and planes. They have two full-size trains, I think, inside of the museum, which is pretty wild. And I’m looking forward to it because the fundraiser itself is going to be in their bike and motorcycle room. And as somebody who loves bikes and motorcycles and has a deep appreciation for old things that are fixed up, I’m really excited to have it hosted in there. The scavenger hunt that we’ll be doing will involve different artifacts in the museum to encourage people to engage with those artifacts and celebrate old cars and bikes and planes and trains and brunch.

The first 100 people get a welcome package. We have a bunch of  free giveaways that come with the ticket. Entry to the museum is also included. There are different tiers, everything that we do is cost-flexible. This is a fundraiser so we ask that folks buy tickets, but we have a financial accessibility ticket starting at $35 that covers brunch, a drink, entry to the museum, a raffle ticket; just so folks can participate in the event. General Admission is $75, and then there are opportunities to sponsor as well.

You mentioned Gender Equality Mechanic (GEM) Nights. What are they, and how did they come about?
Bikes can be for everybody. They’re infinitely repairable. They’re very fun. There are lots of different types of bikes, but generally, the bike industry can be pretty homogenous. It’s generally white, cis, oftentimes male, able-bodied folks. GEM night arose out of the idea that folks from all backgrounds and identities should feel confident in walking into a bike shop and feeling like they can ask questions, and feeling like they can get a bike that works for them and their body and their style of riding, and what they’re interested in.

Most folks who I’ve talked to who are not cis, white, affluent men feel really uncomfortable being in a bike shop. I have had this experience as well even as the executive director of this organization; oftentimes I get questioned because of my gender or the way that I present my gender. People doubt my knowledge about bike mechanics and the bike industry. So GEM has created an affinity space for women, girls, trans folks of all identities, nonbinary people, femmes of all types, to come into the shop and feel more confident in that mechanic space. 

That’s incredible. What can people expect when attending a GEM night?
It’s free. Folks don’t have to bring a bike. They can just come if they’re interested in learning about bikes and work on bikes together. We actually have two different GEM programs. We have the GEM nights, which happen on the last Thursday of the month, and that’s just the open shop for folks to come in. And then we also have a GEM mechanics course. We offer a four-part mechanic series. It happens on a monthly basis, and during that series it’s a set curriculum, and folks learn about the different major systems of a bicycle. And we do have an all-gender cohort available, and then a GEM-specific cohort available. The folks that I’ve talked to say that it’s a lot easier to feel confident in asking questions, to feel confident in just putting their hands on a wrench and wrenching on bikes. The mechanics are accessible for anybody, regardless of their gender identity or presentation or how competent they have previously felt in a mechanic space. We want to make the bike mechanic space more accessible and more welcoming for folks who haven’t necessarily seen themselves as mechanics.

I don’t think bikes are one of the first things people think about when they think of education and equitability. So what makes centering a community around bikes so special?
You’re so much more present in the community (on bikes) than you are driving a big delivery truck, you know? If you go for a walk, you see different things along your walk. If you go for a bike ride, your focus is on different things in your world. And then if you’re driving, you’re sort of in a box, kind of tuned out from the world. I think bikes invite us to be present, to appreciate the world around us, to be really centered in our bodies, and then they can sort of be a vehicle for social change when you use them.

At Bikes Together we see a lot of folks who are experiencing many different types of life transitions, whether they’re new to this country, or they’re experiencing homelessness, or they’re transitioning out of being recently incarcerated, bikes can be a tool for them to have some sort of sustainability, or be able to kind of get their footing as they’re navigating their lives. Bikes are cool. You can get a tandem, and you can make a friend, and you can ride around, or you can get on a unicycle. That can be incredibly humbling and silly, but also really joyful.

Is there any last thoughts you’d like to add for our readers?
For folks who are interested in biking, either for divesting from cars or because they want to try different types of biking, there are lots of different options. There are lots of small bike shops and nonprofits in Denver that are helping to make this accessible.

Images courtesy of social media