Making Old Bikes New for Post-Katrina New Orleans
I love discovering an occasional gem of a Website during minutes (hours?) of random Internet browsing, and today I found a real diamond: RUBARB, which stands for “Rusted Up Beyond All Recognition Bikes.”
Started by volunteers in March 2006 — about a half-year after Hurricane Katrina and the levee-failure flooding of New Orleans — RUBARB was inspired by a much-repeated experience of hurricane cleanup crews: pulling bicycle after unused, flood-damaged bicycle from the mountains of trash that covered the city. Rather than consign these flood bikes to the post-Katrina dump, these volunteers decided, why not clean them, fix them and then pass them along to residents and other volunteers who need them?
That idea has since flowered into a “full-scale, Upper 9th Ward community bike shop” that not only refurbishes old bikes to bring them new life, but offers bike maintenance and repair education, an EARN-A-BIKE program for New Orleans youths, monthly field trips, bike races and even opportunities to create bicycle-theme art.
RUBARB’s Website also features links to other Crescent City bicycle programs, including the Plan B New Orleans Community Bike Project, the Metro Bicycle Coalition and Bayou Bicycles. And if you’re in the New Orleans area this summer and looking for a good cause to help, RUBARB is seeking volunteers … not just bike mechanics but anyone with creative skill or a unique craft knowledge. Sound like something you’d like to take part in? Let the RUBARB folks know by emailing them at buildit@rubarbike.org.
