“A Welcoming and Useful Space”

Momoko Saunders moved to Portland in 2005 and couldn’t find a community bike shop, so she started one. She and co-founder Ariel Raymond met at UC Santa Cruz and were inspired by the Bike Church, Santa Cruz’s community bike shop. Says Momoko, “Ariel volunteered there and used the space a lot, so when she moved to Portland she was surprised there was nothing like that here. So she got some people together and said ‘Let’s start something like this.’”

Bike Farm is a nonprofit, all-volunteer community bike shop that emphasizes education about bike repair and cycling. Work stands and tools rent for $5 per hour. Guidance is available from volunteer mechanics, but everyone works on their own bikes. According to Momoko, this hands-on, DIY approach can come as a bit of a surprise:

“Everyone thinks that we’re a bike shop. That they can come in and drop off their bike and we’ll fix it for them. People will come in on their Sunday joyride, and they got a flat, and we’ll teach them. We say, ‘We’ll help you, sell you the inner tube, but you’ve got to do it yourself, we’re not going to do it for you.’ The way to learn something is to do it yourself.”

“One of the hindrances to feeling comfortable and confident about riding bikes is not knowing what to do if something breaks. So I think the basics of bike repair like fixing a flat or putting your chain back on or adjusting your brakes or the fit of your bike, are really important to be able to be a cyclist. So we’re trying to promote cycling in the city, and we think that education will help that.”

“The other thing is that cycling as a form of transportation, we want that to be accessible to all people of all incomes, and not everyone has the ability to pay fifty or one hundred dollars for a bike repair, twice a year. We all need maintenance, and a lot of that can be done by yourself if you know how.”

Momoko thinks that Bike Farm doesn’t take business from professional bike shops. Instead, it helps more people become cyclists:

“Most bike shops understand that we’re not taking customers away from them, it’s just that those customers wouldn’t exist. They would just ride their bikes in disrepair, until their bikes broke and then they would ride the bus. We’re growing the pie. We’re not taking a bigger piece of it.”

Another part of growing the pie is making Bike Farm welcoming to women and communities of color. The first and third Tuesday of each month is Women and Trans night, something that Bike Farm has done from the beginning, though Momoko notes that finding volunteer staff for that night has sometimes been a challenge. She also thinks Bike Farm could do better in serving communities of color:

“It’s partially our location, those communities are often more on the outskirts of Portland because they’ve been pushed out. Also there’s not as many people of color in our volunteer group, and it’s harder to get more volunteers, when you don’t have anybody that looks like the population you’re trying to serve. It’s something I’ve always been conscious of, and always tried to question, ask why is that, and how can we make it better.”

“But at the same time, it’s also not at the forefront of our daily grind. We’re just trying to keep the shop open a lot of times. It’s unfortunate but I hope that at some point in time we have more energy to put into understanding why we’re not serving those communities. Honestly, it just takes a lot of effort, and you have to, as an organization, say this is what we’re going to prioritize.”

Momoko would like to prioritize making Bike Farm a more accessible, welcoming and safe space for all, rather than expanding:

“When we first started Bike Farm, I think I wanted to grow it as quickly as possible and make it this amazing organization that provided all these services. And then once day I realized, like whoa, what if we just do what we say we’re going to do, and do it well. And try to do it as painlessly and smoothly and be that part of the community and be so good at that job. And try to grow it more like a bonsai than a redwood forest.”

That means making sure that when anyone walks into Bike Farm for the first time, they see a “welcoming and useful space full of friendly people that want to help them.”

(Bike Farm is located at 1810 NE 1st St, Portland. (503) 583-2760, bikefarm.org)