Spring cleaning in the mountains sometimes means getting rid of an old bike or two. If you’re not going to use them anymore, the Village Bicycle Project wants them.
The organization is hosting a donation drive Saturday at the Canyons Village parking lot from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Donated bikes will support sustainable transportation projects in Sierra Leone and Ghana. Village Bicycle Project Executive Director Joshua Poppel said all usable bikes are welcome, but there are certain kinds that are more useful in Africa.
“Older mountain bikes are really kind of our bread and butter," Poppel said. "They handle the rural roads there better than most, although most contemporary hybrids work equally well. We’re also supporting a nation’s cycling team in Sierra Leone, so any sort of road bikes, any gear, any old parts, tires, tubes, any old cycling equipment or clothing, we can pretty much put it all to use.”
The organization has been sending bikes to Africa for 20 years. Poppel said the bikes help people without access to reliable transportation get to school, work, or elsewhere.
The organization sent 500 bikes to Africa last year and hopes to have similar success this summer.
James May also works with the organization and said he’s seen people in Park City donate some valuable bikes in the past, along with some unusual ones.
“I believe we got a recumbent bike, which I do believe we shipped," he said. "We got a chopper bike that was like an old motorcycle type of bike. That was really neat and was in good shape and just needed a little bit of polish on it.”
For more information on the bike drop, click here.
