Camera staff
Saturday, March 31, 2007

Luke Harding, right, hands Rich Points a recycled bike at Community Cycles in Boulder on Thursday.

In the past, when Boulder police couldn't find a bicycle's owner, they would donate it to Go Boulder. Those bikes would eventually make their way to low-income residents who needed transportation.

Jan Ward, who ran that program, left the city last year. This week, officials decided to give most of those bikes to a nonprofit group called Community Cycles.

Rich Points, who runs the nonprofit, said Community Cycles puts bikes in the hands of people who can't afford their own. Community Cycles has a workshop where participants help rehabilitate broken-down bicycles. After logging 15 hours of volunteer work, Points said, participants get to take a bike home.

"We call it the 'Earn-a-Bike' program,'" he said. "We do a lot of work with low-income people and with homeless people."

Community Cycles will hold an open house from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. today at its shop, 2805 Wilderness Place, Suite 1000, in Boulder. Members of the public also can drop in to practice their bike-mechanic skills any time the shop is open.

Those hours are 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays; 3 to 7 p.m. Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays; 2 to 6 p.m. Saturdays; and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.