Monday June 26th – July 24th (NO CLASS on July 3rd), 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Price: $140 PLUS costs of parts
Want to learn how to build your own wheel? The Wheelbuilding class takes you step by step through the process!!
Each class is two hours long and meets once per week for four weeks.
Classes are part lecture and part hands-on exercises
Wear clothes that you don’t mind getting grease on.
Mandatory Prerequisite: Basic Knowledge of Wheel Truing
The WOMEN* & NONBINARY Wheel Building Class is identical to the co-ed class except that it is taught by women/transfolks/femme mechanics in an intentional environment meant to give space to people who want to learn bike mechanics and are not cismen. (Cis- meaning that you still identify with the gender you were given at birth).
*The Women and Nonbinary classes are inclusive of transwomen as well as non-binary, gender fluid, gender non-conforming, two-spirit, and intersex people, and anyone who is not a cisman.
We are so proud to support and celebrate our LGBTQIA community members! This weekend is Pride Weekend in Boston, and to give back to the community we are hosting a cookie sale all day on Saturday June 10th at the shop. We’re open from 10am to 6pm, and all cookies must go!
Cookies will be donated by local bakeries and baked by workers at Broadway, and the proceeds from each cookie will be donated to Boston GLASS (Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Service) which provides counseling and support for queer youth in Boston. Last year, we raised enough money to buy two of their youth bikes complete with helmets, locks, and lights. All that thanks to the generosity and support of our incredible community members giving back. Come back again on Saturday to celebrate with us this year!
Ellen here writing from the West Coast: Hello! I’ve biked through Washington state and Oregon, and now I’m in California where I sadly have to skip a section because a landslide took out a bridge in Big Sur. Instead of biking several hundred miles out of our way to make it around the detour, Erica and I are taking an Amtrak train from Salinas to San Luis Obispo where we can pick up the route again a la the Adventure Cycling Association’s awesome maps.
After 20-something days on the road, taking our bikes on a train is just one example of how we’ve had to figure out a few different ways to transport our bicycles other than riding them to make it this far. It turns out, bikes and public/private transportation options can integrate quite well, and sometimes they don’t integrate at all– but it tends to be very specific to what options you’re near.
So, if you’re looking to transport your bike for adventures this summer, here are your best options:
By plane
Option 1: If you’re flying somewhere far away, JetBlue lets you bring your bike in a box for $50 as long as it’s already packed, and it counts as oversized baggage. Panniers count as great carry-on baggage.
Option 2: If you’re going somewhere that JetBlue doesn’t fly to, or you generally plan a little more in advance, you can get your bike shipped ahead of you by using FedEx Ground or Bike Flights. Bike Flights usually ends up being a little cheaper than most other options, and the nice thing is you just drop your bike off at a bike shop (like Broadway, which will charge $40 to “flatten” it enough to fit in a box and pad it all with special packaging), book the shipping online, and the Bike Flights will pick it up from the shop for you. Then you choose a bike shop at your destination to ship it to, and you can either pick it up and assemble it yourself or ask the shop to do it.
By train
Option 1: Trains are a really great way to get around! If you’re taking Amtrak, you have to book your bike slot ahead of time. Usually Amtrak adds $20 per bike to the cost of your ticket, and you have to roll your bike to the first car in the train, and then run to the back where you’ll sit. Then you just roll it off when you reach your destination.
Option 2: Commuter trains (like the MBTA, BART, Metro, etc.) will mostly be cool with you rolling your bike on and off. Many have restrictions about bringing your bike on trains during rush hour, but Erica and I got away with getting on the BART in San Francisco at the beginning of rush hour and taking it to the end of the line (a whole 1.5 hour trip) and nobody hassled us about it.
By bus
Option 1: If you are lucky enough to have inter-city bus transit options, the busses usually have a rack for two, maaaybe three bikes on the front. We’ve found that it’s helpful to carry a bungee cord so you can lash the part of the rack that hooks to your front wheel, because the bikes do sway precariously.
I’ve also had the hook jiggle completely off the front wheel midway through the busride, where the bus driver had to stop and let me reattach it. This jiggle-down probably was possible because my front rack (a Surly low-rider) didn’t let the hook move into where it wants to be – if your bike doesn’t have a front rack, you might not have this problem. The bus might charge you an extra dollar or two for the bike, but using this kind of transit is decidedly the easiest and cheapest way to get your bike across towns and cities.
Option 2: Word to the wise, Greyhound stinks when it comes to bicycle transportation. They require that your bike is in a box, and you can buy a box from them for $15 only at staffed bus locations (boxes which bike shops like Broadway will give you for free). You also have to book it ahead of time, and much of Amtrak’s Connecting Thruway services are contracted out through Greyhound. So even though it might LOOK like you can bring your bikes on easily, you can’t.
Megabus is the same way (bikes must be boxed), but BoltBus seems to let you stash your bike fully assembled in the belly of the bus (but they assume no liability for damage, because bikes sliding around down there might get a good amount of damage). Erica and I have not tested either of these companies though, so we’d love to hear if you’ve have experience with them.
By automobile
Many parts of the country simply don’t have bike-friendly public/private transportation options. If planes, trains, or buses can’t get you and your bike where you need to go, cars can probably do the trick.
Tip 1: If you can drive where you’re going but don’t have a bike rack, you can fix two bikes in the back of a mid-sized sedan by lowering the back seats, taking out the front wheels of both bikes, and twisting the handlebars parallel to the bikes.
Tip 2: If you need to rent a car one-way, the rental company will usually tack on about $100 to the cost because they have to get the car back home after you use it. Ask ahead of time though, because not all companies let you do one-way rentals.
Tip 3: If you are transporting a lot of bikes and gear (line for a group of cyclists), U-haul is a great way to get a lot of space quickly. They even have flatbed pickup trucks for local-ish transportation, which is perfect for getting a bike or two across that tough spot. But, if you do a one-way rental, especially if the drop off is very far away from the pickup location, U-haul does have a steep upcharge that makes it impractical for many touring cyclists.
Tip 3: Obviously if you have a car with a bike rack, or you have a kind friend who had a car with a bike rack, this is always the most convenient way to get around. But, touring cyclists or cyclists who don’t own cars gotta figure it out somehow too!
It’s been a real adventure trying to figure out how to mesh country-wide public transit with bicycling, and hopefully this helps y’all figure it out easily enough that you can get your butts back on your bikes where you want to be!
Thanks to all who were able to join us yesterday morning for our Annual Pancake Breakfast for Mass Bike Week! We had a blast and it was great to visit with our cycling community over blueberry, banana and chocolate pancakes, orange juice and lots of coffee. See you all next year!
Our Annual Pancake Breakfast is next Tuesday 5/16! Join us to celebrate Bay State Bike Week as our mechanics trade their wrenches for spatulas and whip up delicious pancakes for you to chow down on from 7:30-9:30 a.m.! Vegan and gluten-free options available while supplies lasts. Coffee and orange juice will be there to energize the rest of your bike ride into work! #seizethespatula
Hey there, y’all. I’m Ellen, one of the mechanics here at Broadway.
This is the absolute busiest time of year at the most bike shops (especially in New England, where everyone and their mother is so relieved by the warm spring weather after long, brutal winters that destroy bicycles). But, while I’ll be away from the shop for the next month, be sure to visit my incredibly dedicated coworkers — Kate, Tommy, Suzanne, Joe, Colin, Justin, Bettina, Jace, Susanne, and Chantal — who are covering for me. Instead ofwrenching, I’ll be biking down the Pacific Coast with my partner, Erica.
Erica and I met on a bike ride, testing out a route for a bike camping trip with the local femme/trans/women advocacy, wrenching, and social group Femmechanics (they also partners with us to host a free open shop time called Grrrease Time once a month at Broadway).
Erica has just finished her 5-year term as the Director of Fundraising at Bikes Not Bombs (BNB). We at Broadway love BNB.They also serve bike commuters (but mostly on the other side of the Charles River), they pick up all our donations and recycling, and we love seeing their truck full of volunteers roll up outside our shop once a week. To celebrate the end of such a fulfilling job, as well as her 30th birthday, she and I are going to bike camp down the Pacific Coast because … well when else do you get the chance to do this?
Caption: In the Arnold Arboretum testing out our soft goods: panniers, frame bags, and the hammock we’ll sleep in along the way.
Normally it’s a 1,600-mile venture, and most people do it over the course of 2-3 months. We only have a month, so we’ll probably have to hop a few trains and buses to cumulatively skip about ? of the coastal bike route.
We’ve built up our own bicycles from bare frames –she an All-City Space Horse Disc and me a Soma Double Cross — custom painted them and rigged them up using gear at Broadway or scrounged from the BNB donation bin. We’ve put in countless hours at both shops after they’ve closed, and we think we’ve made machines that will get us from Seattle to San Diego and see some rad trails in between.
Want to see how it all goes? We’ll be posting regularly here and on Instagram (@broadwaybikes and @ellenmelooon) with updates from the road: what breaks or wears out, secret trails we find, the humans we meet along the way, and what 8 hours of pedaling every day teaches us about this weird world we live in.
Every winter, the mechanics at Broadway Bicycle School spend time reflecting on our place in the Boston biking community. We know that we’re kinda like your bike doctors: We see you when your bikes are broken, when you’re getting a check-up just before a big ride, or when you are looking for your first bike or a new member of the fleet. But what we DON’T get to see that much of are your rides. The reason you get your butt in the saddle. The daily grind on your commute or the once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
So this season, we’ve decided that we are going to start documenting and celebrating those big and small moments that make us all of part of this weird world we call bicycling. We’ll be featuring the rides that y’all enjoy in our community, weird bike projects, new gadgets and technology, our mechanics, Broadway lore, and all sorts of stuff that will document our community history.
We’ll also keep making time in between fixing flats and overhauling bottom brackets to document and celebrate some of the other rides that our staff and community members saddle up for.
While Broadway Bicycle technically follows the traditional Gregorian Calendar like the \rest of the world, there’s a definite “season” between April and November where bicycle shops get a lot busier. People start bringing their bikes in for the annual tune-up so we can clean off the winter salt and get it ready for the nice weather, they pull their old bikes out of the basement to figure out whether it’s worth tuning them up, they go searching for a bike to fiiiiiinally start commuting to work with their own pedal power instead of the T or Uber every day. You know, all the reasons we have these weird wheeled machines that take us places.
All this Start-of-Season bustle is what all of us mechanics buckle up for every year…and it starts tomorrow. No joke, April 1st really is just a few hours away!
To celebrate this Bicycling new Year, let’s take a look back at the 2016 Season and see what we did. Over the 2016 Season, the mechanics at Broadway Bicycle:
Fixed 2,216 flat tires.
60% were rear in the rear, 40% were in the front.
Did 1023 tune ups.
1 in 10 were single speeds.
Replaced 2,834 brake pads.
Most were for linear pull V-brakes. Sold 1,417 sets of brake pads
Overhauled 99 bottom brackets.
Wrapped 152 handlebars.
Test rode 3,253 bicycles before they went out the door with you.
What other stats are you curious about? Comment below, or bring your bike in and ask! In fact, we prefer that you bring your bike in to the shop, because although we are X-ray-vision wizards, we can’t tell over the phone why it’s making that weird noise. BUUUT. If we can see the bike we can give you an estimate of what service your bike needs – at no cost, in about 15 minutes.
We’re looking forward to a productive, rad, and FUN 2017 season with y’all!
We’re a collectively run and locally owned bicycle shop that has been in operation since 1972. A subset of workers own and democratically manage the business. As a full-service bike shop, we both repair and sell new and used bikes. Our tools and space are also made available for rent, so folks can come in and fix their own bikes by themselves or with one-on-one assistance from a mechanic. In the evenings we offer classes on the topic of bicycle maintenance and repair. Several times throughout the year, we provide on location mechanical services for local business and organizations. Also we are proud to offer a $15 per hour starting wage.
Walking into a bicycle shop for the first time can be an intimidating endeavor for many, which is why Broadway strives to create a welcoming environment for all persons that come through our door.
Job Description:
We are hiring for a bicycle mechanic whose responsibilities also include customer service and sales. This is a full-time (~40) hours per week from February — April 2017 (start dates vary from early Feb to the start of April and full-time does not begin until April) through the end of October 2017 with the expectation to work one and sometimes two weekend days. This is a fast paced work environment that often requires workers to jump back and forth between the roles of mechanic and salesperson many times over the course of a shift. Employees are hired “at-will” but due to the seasonal nature of the business there is a period which usually begins at the start of November when little to no hours will be available.
It is NOT a prerequisite that you have previous shop experience, only that you have a passion for bicycles and working on them. We will provide the necessary training in all aspects of the position. We encourage people of color, LGBTQIA folks and women (including transwomen, nonconforming, and nonbinary folks) to apply.
If you are interested in applying please fill out the 2017 Broadway Bicycle School Application found on our website and drop it by the shop or email it to broadway [ at ] broadwaybicycleschool [ dot ] com.
