Bicycle Collective History

This is the history of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective.

The Idea and Founders

The concept of a Community Bike Shop was presented at a Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee (MBAC) by Brenton Chu in 2001. While it was well received, the MBAC didn't have the resources to support it. However, there were some folks attending the meeting that were interested in trying separate of the MBAC. Those individuals also found some other enthusiastic cycling advocates at Critical Mass and they all began talking.

The Salt Lake City Bicycle Cooperative was initially incorporated in 2002 by Jonathan Morrison, Edward Whitney, Brenton Chu, Brian Price, and Jesse Ratzkin. Very early in that process Brenton moved to NYC to pursue film and Jason Bultman came aboard. In talking to a lawyer about 501(c)(3) status, we found out that Utah State has a specific definition of Cooperatives that we didn't fit it. So we re-instated our articles of incorporation as the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective and officially added Jason.

Edward Whitney, aka fast-eddy, found $5,000 from a friend with a family foundation. This seed money galvanized our belief that 'this' might work. We used it to pay for a lawyer and consult with an account. Thanks to Brian Price, who filled out everything and dealt with the lawyers, we were able to apply for our 501(c)(3) status. Prior to this point we didn't know how to pay for this so considered selling Jesse to medical science and even crazy ideas like keg parties. Jesse will be missed.

First Projects

Space, Tools and Bikes

Brian Price was living in a warehouse at the time, so foolishly he offered some of that space up for our operations. We had some personal tools that we pooled together. Even today, there are still tools with yellow tape on them, those were Brian's and the tools that have 'JM' faded on them were belonged to Jonathan Morrison. While we had the basic tools covered, we still needed bikes. Using the seed money we put ads in all the local rags, Catalyst, City Weekly, Cycling Utah, etc.,... advertising a Bike Drive. We set up in parks across the city for a few weekends and totaled three bikes. However, while our paid advertisements were a wash, they did catch the eye of a Salt Lake Tribune newspaper reporter, Janet Rae Brooks. She was interested in our project and ran an article in Sunday paper.

The response to the newspaper article was overwhelming. It took three teams the better part of a weekend to drive around in pickup trucks and gather all the bikes. Brian's warehouse was now bike land.

Earn-a-Bike

Everything is connected, and that article caught the attention of Ken Perko, the Director of YouthCity. He contacted us in 2003 and asked if we would teach a class where the kid's got a bike. They even had a small space at the County Rec Center at (300 E 600 S) we could set up shop in. It was a lifeguard station, so we didn't have a lot of room.

Called Bike Bonanza, the first class was taught by Keith Andersen, a frame builder from Moab with 15 years of experience; Tim Bowman, who was a Mechanical Engineer; Dr. Jesse Ratskin, in the middle of his Post-Doc in mathematics at the University of Utah (we really didn't sell him to medical science); and Jonathan Morrison, who was finishing his degree in Software Engineering. As a factoid, Jonathan didn't even know how to change a bottom bracket when this class started. Rumor has it he has since learned, but you know what they say about rumors.

To make this class extra special we wanted to paint the bikes. Someone mentioned powder coating and Jonathan called every powder coater in the phone book. Tina at Steel Coatings was not only willing to powder coat the bikes, but they also let the kids tour the factory and watch the powder coating process.

This first class was incredible and we some of the kids, now much bigger, volunteer at the collective.