Category: Youth Projects

The Council Leads The Youth Bike Summit In The US

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14th – 16th June 20204, Allentown, Pennsylvania U.S.A – Leaders from the National Youth Bike Council (NYBC) led a Youth Bike Summit that looked to further connect young people into the world of bicycling or bicycling advocacy by bringing like minded young people and their staff members together.

The Youth Bike Summit has been going for nine years and is deeply rooted in community engagement. According to the president of the NYBC, Joshua F., the Summit “thrives because local organisations that get young people on bicycles bring their young people to the summit each year”

Some priority Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that guide the event are SDGs 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, 4: Quality Education and, 13: Climate Action.

The organisers worked with different local stakeholders and they started creating programs that encourage youth to use their bicycles, especially directed to those who may want to start the journey but are unsure how.
Through the workshops, the NYBC calls for additional youth groups to join the resource-sharing partnership for cyclists in and around Pennsylvania. “The Resource Sharing Partnership is an opportunity for youth groups to sustain, improve, and transform approaches to getting more young people educated, riding bicycles, and closer to leading local action.”

The Summit was joined by 206 youth, staff, and volunteers from 26 different youth-focused organisations.

The attendees were presented with testaments from leaders in the international cycling community and were invited to attend peer-led workshops. They also joined several different themed bike rides, engaging and interacting with their fellow cyclists.

The Summit was made possible through local partnerships with Community Bike Works, passionate contributors, and crucial sponsorships.

“We are pleased to have had the contributions of 32 workshops over 3 days, 1 big bicycle ride joined by the Mayor of Allentown, and majority youth participation (72%). The Youth Bike Summit is on the move, traveling from city to city, next year it will be in Boston, Massachusetts from May, 30th 2025 to June, 1st 2025. It’s our goal to establish a pathway, through nationwide collaboration of bicycle organizations to enable young people to be able to advocate on their behalf.” – Joshua F., NYBC President

Hundreds of teens gathered in the Lehigh Valley for the national Youth Bike Summit. They want to make cycling safer nationwide.

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Celebrating Joshua’s Legacy, Embracing the Future

2025 marks the last year that Joshua is serving as the President of the National Youth Bike Council. Joshua served as
the National Youth Bike Council president since its inception in 2017. This transition happened a month after the 2025
Youth Bike Summit that took place in Boston between May 30-June 1st 2025. Attendees at the summit heard it first hand
from Council Member Pablo when the announcement was made on Sunday June 1st.

Welcoming Daniel C. as NYBC’s New President

Since June the transition has been underway. Today we have the exciting news that Daniel C. will be the new President of
the National Youth Bike Council. Leading the Council into its second generation of growth for youth leadership through
bicycling and fostering lifelong friendships between current and new Council members.

Joshua speaking at the Youth Bike Summit

Joshua speaking at the Youth Bike Summit

Joshua’s Tenure: Partnerships, Progress, and Purpose

During Joshua’s time serving the organization, the National Youth Bike Council discovered national level partnerships
with the recreation, healthcare, and education sectors. As President he also led the organizations through acquiring and
running the Youth Bike Summit from 2022 – 2025. We are very thankful for Joshua’s leadership in creating opportunities
for young leaders to learn, connect and grow through the initiatives of the National Youth Bike Council.

Joshua speaking at the Youth Bike Summit

Joshua is a continued board member of the organization and will be supporting as Board Chair and a Youth Bike Summit
Steering Committee member.

$20,000 Bike Project Kickstarted by Carnegie Mellon’s Graduate Students

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Author: Council Member Joshua

It’s called the Tartan Bike Project.

What’s top of mind for college students these days? Freedom to move, affordable transportation, and finding real, meaningful friendships. That’s the spirit behind the Tartan Bike Project, launched by two graduate students, Kenedy and Hosea, who together raised $20,000 toward an on campus ‘Bicycle Project’.

Naturally, we were curious—how did they pull that off? In short, it took a lot of planning.

Since last year, the pair have been moving on launching a bicycle repair & rental space on campus in their free time. Its goal? To create a welcoming space where Carnegie students can gather around bikes, get repairs, borrow a ride, and keep campus life active and mobile—especially in the warmer months.

We Interviewed Kenedy

“Moving to a new city was difficult” Kenedy shared. “OBP was a big part of my community, so I wanted something similar in Pittsburgh.”

She’s talking about the Orange Bike Project at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, where she did her undergrad. It was a student-run campus bike program that offered not just tools and repairs—but community. That experience sparked the inspiration behind the Tartan Bike Project.

When Kenedy started college at UT, she got a bike. Then she saw a call for volunteer mechanics at the Orange Bike Project. That was her entry point—not just into fixing bikes, but into a unique kind of student environment with a shared vibe and purpose. The bike shop became her second home.

After moving to Pittsburgh and meeting Hosea, Kenedy found herself in familiar territory—needing to fix her bike. On top of the need to fix it, she was getting ready to invest in a better and higher-end bicycle. The gap of there being no on-campus bicycle spaces got the pair thinking, maybe they were not the only ones with this issue.

After about a semester of listening and getting used to Pittsburgh, they figured out they were right. They were not alone in their needs. The hesitation amongst their peers to invest money or time to learn about bicycles mostly stemmed from a lack of repair support on campus. That growing need, mixed with their own desire for a shared student space, gave a new meaning to something bigger: the Tartan Bike Project.

Getting $20,000

The first part of the journey to starting a Bike Project was not straightforward but they had an idea: a pop-up bicycle stand. Hosea and Kenedy printed a ton of posters and hung them up around the bicycle racks on campus, drawing in over 80 students to their one-day pop up bicycle stand. To make sure it was not a fleeting idea, the two prepared a survey which about 40-50 students filled out, where they asked for volunteers, opinions and needs.

This initiative was so successful that the pair were invited to table at Bike Week which came up a few months after the pop up table. This initiative was run by Transportation Services at Carnegie, led by Michele Porter, the department’s Director. This event offered bicycles that were left around campus to passing students alongside a lot of other amenities from off-campus bicycle providers. The main issue the two noticed was that the bicycles that were given away would end up abandoned again because students had no clue on how to fix up the bicycles. With the help of Kraynick’s Bike Shop, who provided them the tools, the opportunity turned into another promising success, where they fixed as many bicycles as they could that day, building their case for why an on-campus bicycle project was needed.

They worked closely with the school and some friends from Pitt Bike Cave to curate a proposal that went through the Graduate Student Assembly. Simultaneously, they made sure to make friends along the way with Michelle Porter.

Reflecting back, Kenedy mentioned that her role models for starting the Bike Project were more
than just the Orange Bike Project students, but Yellow Bike (also located in Austin), Pitt Bike Cave (located in Pittsburgh), and FreeRide. Each organization’s presence in her communities helped make an impact on Kenedy’s decision that an on campus Bike Project would be worth it.

The proposal was approved by the Graduate Student Assembly which got them a multi-year commitment to support the Tartan Bike Project with $20,000. (Later, the Graduate Student Assembly would approve another 3K of additional funding to support other more immediate project needs.)

What’s Next?

“Connect with people around you.” That was one piece of advice Kenedy mentioned for students who are considering starting a bicycle project at their university. Their current challenges are now putting into action all the needs they mentioned in the budget.

Hosea and Kenedy know their project is long lasting as support in their work from Carnegie demonstrates the university’s multi-year financial commitment to student transportation needs and fostering on-campus student relationships. The two have big plans and wishes, all the way from offering credited classes with the Tartan Bike Project to being a part of the school’s Transportation Service department.

Tartan Bike Project will be open Fall 2025, starting with a few regular hours, and some social aspects.

Do It Yourself

Hosea and Kenedy are not the only ones with on-campus bicycle projects. There are other long-standing bicycle projects that have figured out what makes a university bicycle project work.

Tatiana from Georgia Tech, is the former president of Starter Bikes, a bicycle project very similar to Tartan Bike Project, at a Bicycle Friendly University has agreed to give us the ‘Essentials to start a College Bicycle Program’ on July 14th at 11:30 AM ET. During the webinar, Tatiana, will break down the essential resources you need to start or sustain a bike program on your campus. From sourcing tools and parts to securing space and allies, she’ll share practical tips and lessons learned from running a thriving student-led bike shop at Georgia Tech.

Sign up for our Newsletter to join the webinar.

Q&A With Allan Of Brandeis University

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Author: Council Members Zoe

Meet Allan
We asked Allan what motivated him to start a Bicycle Library like the late DeisBikes project. He attributed it to riding a bicycle as a youth and experiencing how limited the bicycle infrastructure was on campus. All he wanted at first was just a few more bicycle racks to attend class. Then he started to dream bigger once he learned more about how DeisBikes used to operate. Now, he wants to leave Brandeis, but not before having established a bike library program, having that come to fruition would be a dream. He acknowledged this in addition to all of his other duties as a student, where reviving a program similar to the old DeisBikes would be a significant achievement for himself and Brandeis.

(Allan, a Brandeis student)

Determined to address these concerns, Allan plans to submit continue his work in the Spring of 2025. He also envisions an educational component to the program if time allows, offering common-knowledge bicycle safety tips for students with varying levels of experience. It’s also not unheard of for bicycle libraries or collegiate bicycle communities to share the same color scheme as the university, like Southwestern University out of Georgetown Texas does with their Pirate Bikes.

(Pirate Bikes – Photo credit of Peter Suciu with Bike Radar)

Drawing further inspiration from other bike-share programs with Tufts Bikes in Tufts University located near Boston, he hopes to see convenient bike racks at every building, a convenient technical way to checkout bicycles, and off-campus maps highlighting the best bike routes.

Q&A With Allan

1. What bicycle do you ride and what’s the name of it?
A: I ride two bikes. The bike I ride in Boston is the 2018 Giant Contend 3, which I used to commute to school daily last year.

2. What other forms of transportation do you use as a student when not riding a bicycle?
A: I like to use the Brandeis Shuttle, particularly to get into Boston and Cambridge on the weekends or into Waltham. I also use the commuter rail often and the MBTA bus to get outside of Waltham– Bus 70 is a life saver. Otherwise, I tend to walk around campus, and sometimes will use a ride-hailing service like Uber or Lyft.

3. How often do you ride as a student?
A: During the school year I like to ride around once a week on the weekend for anywhere from 30 to 120 mile rides, either solo or with a friend. This doesn’t include occasional races with Brandeis Club Cycling. I also participate in cross-training with running.

4. How can students or faculty that potentially see this help?
A: The goal is trying to get other campus bike shares in Boston together for community events, education bike workshops, and just larger thinking. However, any support is welcome. The best way to reach me is by sending me an email at alfeldman@brandeis.edu.

Student At Brandeis University Plans The Next Bicycle Library

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Author: Council Members Zoe & Joshua

Highlight: Student At Brandeis University Plans The Next Bicycle Library

For some rejection is redirection. For Allan F., a soon-to-be senior at Brandeis University, it’s all about staying motivated through rejection. Fueled by passion and determination, Allan has always dreamed of participating in a more bicycle-friendly community. His desire stemmed from simply riding a bicycle when he was much younger, a hobby that followed him all the way to college at Brandeis University, a college located not too far from Boston Massachusetts.

The opportunity to make a difference came after Allan’s freshman year when he learned about DeisBikes through other students, a now-defunct bike-share program at Brandeis that once ran 15 years prior to 2024. DeisBikes allowed students to “check out” bicycles like library books and return them after a set time. Seeing this as his way to create a more bicycle-friendly campus, Allan planned to revive the program to create a campus where students could easily commute, explore local trails, and embrace a more sustainable lifestyle.

 

Highlight: A Library Of Bicycles

Unfortunately, DeisBikes had been discontinued when its founding members graduated, leaving no structure for continuity. Allan had a reputation for being the “the guy who bikes,” so he quickly found a way to get in contact with the founders of DeisBikes to understand their challenges. Their insights pointed to a critical issue: sustainability. This was an opportunity for the school and Allan to renew the program and increase student and faculty biking overall.

Bicycles at Brandeis – Photo credit of Lin Lin Hutchinson from The Justice

Bicycle Library Challenges For Brandeis

The biggest hurdle for Allan was figuring out how to structure a program that wouldn’t collapse when students graduated. This was fate of DeisBikes, which had 4 super dedicated students back in the day. Adding to the challenge, Brandeis’s sustainability office was defunded last year, leaving Allan without institutional support.

During his junior year, Allan surveyed 300 of Brandeis’s 5,000 students. The results were overwhelmingly positive: 91% of respondents supported a bike-share, with 51% saying they’d use it daily. The survey energized Allan, who began envisioning a team of students from multiple class years to ensure long-term commitment.

Another motivator for Allan is Mo, a Brandeis alum, who has done very similar work on campus before involving sustainability innovations. Mo Re Kim ’24 has been instrumental in helping Allan think through the structure of the program and provide previous Brandeis knowledge for future conversations with its Department of Transportation.

With the newfound momentum Allan submitted a proposal to the university, encouraging the use of a Bike share, bicycle library project: Brandeis Bikes. After much discussion and a bit of waiting, the university rejected the proposal.

Setting A New Vision For DeisBikes

Allan admits the rejection was tough but says it provided clarity. “It showed me where the gaps were and how to strengthen the proposal,” he explains. Feedback from the university highlighted the need for him to have specific storage solutions for the bikes and designated roles for short-term and long-term program management. It will also consider a new location for the bicycle system, “by the gym [instead of] the library” he mentioned.

Allan, a Brandeis student

Drawing further inspiration from other bike-share programs such as Tufts Bikes in Tufts University located near Boston, he hopes to see convenient bike racks at every building, a convenient technical way to checkout bicycles, and campus maps highlighting the best bike routes.

Allan has learned that to create change, it requires collaboration, bringing people together and not having them work alone. “This is just a small obstacle we’ll overcome,” Allan says confidently while also giving thanks “to the continual support of MassBike and the Bike Together Waltham community”. With the second semester ahead, he’s committed to making the Bicycle Library a reality at Brandeis. Allan is calling on his fellow students to help with getting the word out, map-making, and maintenance. Allan can be reached at alfeldman@brandeis.edu.

49 States and 500+ Miles Later

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Happy June, I hope you are doing well and keeping cool during a hot summer! With Pride Month and the latest federal holiday, Juneteenth, June offers a time to celebrate and reflect on diversity within our communities. As we have discussed in previous blogs, biking has been historically dominated by white male bikers but there are organizations pushing to make biking more inclusive to all communities. Many of them, like NYBC, are youth-fueled. I had the opportunity to talk with one of those organizations, Pittsburgh Youth Leadership (PYL). Specifically, I talked to 8 riders who were currently on a 500-mile trip from Queensbury, NY to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts. Almost all of them were young, black, and from lower economic means and were not attempting long-distance bike trips before PYL. Yet, they had just finished their 6th day and had already done around 220 miles.

PYL is a nonprofit organization that gives inner-city, low-income, at-risk youth access to biking through all-expenses-paid bike rides across the country – we’re talking about hundreds of miles. They have also been to 49 states, with Hawaii being the exception and they have proof. John Harris (this was his 4th trip with PYL) showed me the “home base” van that has a bumper sticker from every place PYL riders have been. So how did they do it?

Author: Council Member Nora

Morrell Rogers (2nd trip) described the intense training they do to learn bike safety techniques, how to pass correctly, change gears, and get a taste of long-distance riding. Usually, they are around 40 miles. Caleb Freich (5th trip) says that PYL definitely helps him get and stay in shape with Caiy Whim (1st trip) adding that the training rides increase your strength, endurance, and stamina by forcing everyone to face and surpass their limits.

Anthony “AJ” Evans (1st trip) heard about PYL from a school friend and, when he became old enough, was recommended by his school to join, all riders must maintain a 2.0 GPA. He and all the other riders said that what the PYL teaches you is not just physical ability but mental strength. As AJ put it, “You always find a way to push through, you have to persevere,” because once you get started you can’t turn around. Cenire Scott agreed, through PYL he learned that biking is a lot harder than you think, you can easily burn out if you haven’t trained hard enough, but he now knows how to persevere through the burn.

Landon Pickett (1st trip) told me that they ride on both trails and next to roads, rain or shine. Unfortunately this trip there was some rain on rocky terrain, making it the hardest day so far. Everyone seemed to doubt whether they or their bikes would make it through, but as Morrell told me thanks to the perseverance they have built up they were able to pass through.

This is just one of many trips that PYL offers this year with most riders planning to go on as many trips as possible. PYL really stands out to me because of how it is able to transform the idea of biking and include more people in the biking community. One thing they left me with was that you only need to go on one ride to totally reframe your mindset not just in terms of biking but in what your limits are and how you can surpass them.

As I learned from Morrell, Caiy, Caleb, AJ, Moneaz, Landon, Cenire, and John biking introduces you to a community that not only strengthens your physical health but also your respect for yourself and the world around you. I want to shout out PYL this month for doing so much to bring the world of biking to more people and to the PYL riders for persevering through! Good luck with the rest of your rides!

This has not been the only time we have spoken with young people from PYL, Joshua, another Council member, had the chance to bring Desmond, another PYL rider, on a Council Chatcast. Once again, during that conversation, Desmond mentions how being included has changed his life as he has traveled with PYL and experienced things through a new lens on a bicycle and over tons of miles!

The longest trip I have ever done was 250 miles and I cannot imagine doing any more than that. What about you Brian? What is the longest bike ride you have done? How does riding backward change the experience? How do you think we can get more people on bikes?

If you want to find out more about PYL check out their website here, if you are with an organization like PYL, consider hopping into the YB Hub!

The Council In DC

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Author: Council Member Nora

We are live and we are national. That is right, we just got back from the 2023 National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. during peak cherry blossom season: March 26th-29th. Lot, Joshua, Job, and I met up to give a presentation on where the Youth voice fits into the world of biking. But before I get into that, hi! My name is Nora, one of the newest members on the Council, and I along with the other council newbie–Backwards Brian–will be bringing you blogs every month to discuss Council activities, the world of biking, and more! Brian will be making incredible and fun videos below that will go over what I am writing about but with his own style, which–trust me–gives you a new perspective, that’s what riding backward does.

So nice to meet you, now this is the 23rd National Bike Summit and it is an event where all kinds of commuters meet from around the country to ride, network, and discuss the future of biking. One presentation by Outride focused on the brain and how biking impacts its level of performance in beneficial ways. We even got to see it with a VR headset and a bicycle setup!

One of my favorite presentations was a panel discussion on “Creating Safe Streets for Women” in which the Honorable Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, opened up the talk by delving into how biking can be both an empowering and dangerous activity for women, so how do we make it just empowering? Biking serves as a car-free option for women to choose from outside of public transportation–where many women face negative experiences–but more work needs to be done to make public spaces safer for women and all pedestrians who use these public spaces to travel. I particularly enjoyed hearing from Tanisha Sepulveda who is a wheelchair user working to create a cohesive and usable infrastructure for wheelchair users in Seattle, Washington. Tanisha worked to bring attention to the inadequacies of Seattle’s infrastructure by challenging state lawmakers to spend a week free of a car, some weren’t even able to go without a week.

One of the biggest surprises for Lot, Job, and Joshua was running into Yasmine, another youth road-safety advocate. Yasmine was surprised to meet them on one day of the Summit. The shock was so great, it gave us a new friend from Miami and we ended up hanging out all day during the Summit in different presentations.

left-to-right (Joshua, Yasmine, Nora, Lot, Job)

Joshua, Lot, and Job headed to the Capitol on Wednesday to meet with their representatives and discuss infrastructure needs for the biking community. The three Pennsylvanians chatted it up with staffers from Representative Madeline Dean; Senators John Fetterman and Robert P. Casey Jr. Then they got asked to lobby other Senators because they were doing so well, woohoo! The organizers obviously realized the power of giving the youth a voice. Young people are also out there making change and we got to tell legislatures about that change and what the Council was up to!

Cross Youth Leaders With Bicycles – This Is What You Get

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Age is just a number? That is something that Council members Lot, Joshua, and Job will stand by once again, in reference to leadership, as they lead their peers in the Philadelphia region into fun bicycle activities this year.

Independence Youth Cycling along with two other organisations partnered with the National Youth Bike Council to host Spring Things. Spring Things is a flexible game that the Council members made to engage with different bicycle clubs, groups, and programs that adds an additional layer of fun to the program or pre-season activity by rewarding youth participation or leadership. Spring Things is all about having fun on your bicycle and getting rewarded for it – Maris will tell you!

Maris, a youth mountain biker with Independence Youth Cycling, is leading Spring Things in the Greater Philadelphia area with the Council. Maris alongside a few of her peers have worked to launch a Mountain Bike Bingo board (below) that has a list of activities that encourage each other to ride before the season officially starts. You can “ride a bicycle with a friend” or “ride to school or work” for starters. Riders have had access to the board since April 5th and will have the opportunity to submit completed board items until about the first week of May.

While putting the board together, Maris stated a few of her hopes for the outcome of Spring Things. “Off-season training and fun, hoping to have more interaction between members during off season times and away from race-related activities.” She firmly believes that “there are a lot of really helpful and great people in the bicycle community. The cycling community is amazing.” It’s clear that she is the embodiment of leadership and carries the bonus of having made this event possible for her peers, making her a great youth leader on her team.

The photo above is the group getting together to help finalise the event before it launched in April. We are excited to see what comes out in May!

As the planners, we used Discord to coordinate the event, a chat that you can join right here to watch others ride along and complete the challenges. Maris mentioned that she “loved seeing [the] council interact within the discord platform. Specifically, the casual conversations evolved around non-council activities.”

Above, you can see the prizes that come along with participation – ranging from a brand new National Youth Bike Council Jersey to some wrist bands and stickers!! The most rewarding of all is getting out and getting on your bicycle!

National Youth Bike Council is a youth-led non-profit organisation established in 2017 with a mission to provide an active learning space for young cyclists to boost youth voice in the bicycle industry through peer leadership.

Learn more about Independence Youth Cycling – See The Bingo Board While It’s Still Live