What is a bike swap?
It’s a place that one can feel safe buying, selling, and donating bikes. We tech check every bike, record every serial number, and the chain of bike ownership. The police have recovered bikes that were sold at our swaps then later stolen that were being sold online and in pawn shops based on our due diligence. Chris and I started the swaps in 2011 after a few scary incidents buying and selling bikes (we were robbed) so we sketched out processes, designed (and patented) bike racks, and designed (and patented) fit-for-purpose software that was digitized after CBC Gem did a show about our impact and how we help others.
If your community is planning a clean-up, please consider taking the bikes to the Edmonton Bike Swap event because we have groups within Edmonton that depend on these donations. We even pay to repair these donated bikes to help fellow Edmontonians! We had ~17000 attendees at our last swaps in 2019, donated over $28,500 in bikes and in kind to our dozens of strategic alliances, have grown >25%/year, funded safe cycling throughout Alberta through CAN-bike and other safe cycling initiatives, and we hope to continue making an impact in our community.
Need more good news!? This year we’re swapping children’s bikes. This is where you come in – please share our attached message and poster to all and sundry. More details can be found on our website here!
Please save the dates May 14 at MacEwan University from 8:00am to 4:00pm if you have bikes/bike parts to sell or donate! We look forward to seeing you. For more information, please check out our Facebook event page!