Bike Edmonton History

Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society

In 1980, a group of like-minded, bicycle-commuting enthusiasts decided it was time to band together to encourage and help more people to get around Edmonton by bicycle. In August of that year, Bike Edmonton (then called Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society, or EBC, and renamed in 2018) was officially born! The original idea was to promote cycling in Edmonton, encourage the City of Edmonton to seriously consider cycling in its transportation and urban planning, and to provide a do-it-yourself bike shop and bike recycling service to cyclists in Edmonton. Those community bike shops are still at the heart of what we do, but the organization has done much, much more over the years.

Lunar Cycle

In the late 1980's, we launched a festival to celebrate the wondrous machine that is the bicycle! Lunar Cycle, which ran for six years before the main organizers moved on to bigger and better things, was a celebration of all things bike, and included events such as bike-to-work breakfasts, participation in the silly summer parade (with our lovely cow-on-a-bike mascot), advocacy outreach and many other events.

From the early 2000s until late 2010s, Lunar Cycle was reincarnated and expanded by our members and others in the community in the annual June is Bike Month celebrations, centered around the weekend-long Bikeology festival.

Rails to Trails

The Rails to Trails initiative was also developed in the 1990s by a core group of Bike Edmonton members. The vision of Rails to Trails was to convert unused rail corridors in the city into a network of multiuse trails for cyclists and pedestrians. While not as expansive as envisioned, what we advocated for has essentially been adopted by the City of Edmonton’s Ribbon of Steel project.

Bikes on Buses

The Bikes on Buses initiative—to encourage the city to equip Edmonton Transit buses with racks for bicycles—was started by former president Tooker Gomberg. We purchased, via a grant, bike racks for ETS to install on buses, providing half of the racks required for the initial bus routes involved in the pilot. The program has been operating since 1996 within the City of Edmonton, and in 2013 expanded to include all full-size ETS buses.

(Re)Cycling

Since our inception, we have been committed to reducing the environmental impact of bicycles past their prime. We continue to accept used bikes and strip them of parts that can still be used to stock our low-cost parts room. Non-salvageable parts and bikes are sent to be melted down and recycled. In 2006, we expanded our recycling program by partnering with the Alberta Recycling Management Authority, Mountain Equipment Coop, and a number of bike stores in Edmonton to pilot a project to collect and recycle bicycle tires.

Community Bike Workshops

The many changes in the location of our community bicycle workshops (originally called BikeWorks) are also renowned among longstanding members. We started out on Jasper Avenue before moving to 107 Street and 85 Avenue, and then to someone’s car! The next actual building was a quonset hut between Calgary Trail North and South at University Ave. Our next location was a space over at the Tile factory in the same yard. That winter was a particularly cold one for intrepid volunteers, as there was no heat in the Tile Factory. Walter Gobel donated a wood burning stove, and we stayed warm by burning extraneous bits of paper.

We experienced some difficulty with vandals, so, when our landlord, the Alberta Government, sold the property to NAIT the following winter, many welcomed the move to our new location. In 2000 we moved into an alley location at 10047 80 Avenue—a much-needed larger, more visible space which allowed us to expand the services we offer to the community and improve our revenues. In April 2012, we opened BikeWorks North at 9305 111 Ave, a second location for our community bike workshop and home for The Spoke. At the end of 2013, we said goodbye to BikeWorks South's long running location in the alley and moved a block and a half away to 8001 102 Street. The new BikeWorks South had its grand opening in May 2014, and provided the brightest, most visible and most accessible location yet. We closed our North Community Workshop mid-March 2020, and in May 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we opened our new Downtown Community Bicycle Workshop at 10612 105 Ave, directly on a protected bike lane, next door to MacEwan University and much better transit access.

Keep Riding

It’s been a long ride for Bike Edmonton, marked by chaos; rusty clunkers; some new, shiny parts; moves; enthusiasm; thousands of used bikes coming and going; amazing volunteers; happy staff; beautiful, conscientious members; lots of learning; bent tools; people insisting that bikes be made available to them to cycle to Ontario in October; building mezzanines and taking mezzanines down; pizza; bikes and wheels swinging from the rafters and piling thick on the floor; bike movies; lunar cycling; overflowing storage rooms; great conversations over broken bikes; art bikes; staying warm by the light of the wood burning stove; donations from other bike shops; bikes stolen; and on and on and on.

Since 1980, Bike Edmonton has been proud to support cycling in Edmonton. Thanks to our committed supporters, members, volunteers, staff, and funders over the years, we have prevailed to become the group we are today: a mainstream organization making an impact on transportation choices in Edmonton.