Redemptive Cycles to host bike drive at City Hall May 15

The Mountain Brook City Council — at its regular meeting for Monday, May 10 — passed a resolution to allow Birmingham nonprofit Redemptive Cycles to hold a bicycle drive at City Hall in Crestline Village this weekend

The event will be held at City Hall on Saturday, May 15, from 8-10 a.m.

People are encouraged to donate all kinds of bikes, bike parts and accessories in any condition, according to Ryan Davis, a Redemptive Cycles board member, UAB finance professor and Mountain Brook resident who made the presentation to the council members.

The drive is badly needed because cycling has boomed in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, Davis  said.

“There are just no bikes out there, new or used,” he said.

And this effects the organization’s efforts to put bikes in the hands of homeless or low-income people who need them.

In the Earn-A-Bike program, for example, people who need a bike for transportation can earn one with a few hours of community service at any Birmingham-area nonprofit.

Redemptive Cycles is also “a full-service repair shop, just like Bob’s Bikes or Cahaba Cycle,” Davis said.

The nonprofit also sells used and refurbished bikes “at really affordable prices,” he said.

Part of the proceeds from the sales and service operation helps support Earn-A-Bike and other programs, Davis said.

Regarding the bikes that Redemptive will collect on Saturday, the group “will either use them for Earn-A-Bike or fix them up and sell them, and that helps supports Earn-A-Bike,” he said.

The nonprofit has done events like this in the past. However, they have not done one in Mountain Brook, at least not in the year and a half that Davis has served on the board, he said.

“It’s a great program they have down there,” said City Council President Virginia Smith, who added that she donated a bike to Redemptive Cycle last week.

For more information about the organization, go to redemptivecycles.com.