It’s Finally Happening! 5th Annual Hot Cocoa Ride Feb 12!

5th Annual Hot Cocoa /
Infrastructure Spotting Ride!

Hi Folks! We're sorry about the false starts this season, but the weather for Saturday looks amazing and we can't wait to see you all in person again! 

Please bring masks, helmets, and a canteen to enjoy the hot cocoa on the go, since sadly we can't stay inside and hang out! Gear up and get out for what looks like a nice sunny day this Saturday! Can't wait to see you in person!
The Details:
When: Saturday, February 12
Where: Meet in Lower Allston at The Grove (the Space between Trader Joe's and SwissBakers)
Time: Meet at 10am, leave at 10:30am
What: Visiting 3 Hot Cocoa Places
Link to Hot Cocoa Ride FB Event
Are you ready to ride outside again? Board President, Amy Ingles, will talk you through doing an ABC Quick Check to make sure your bike is ready for riding this weekend! 

We Want YOU for the CommonWheels Board!

CommonWheels Bicycle Collective is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Allston, and our mission is to use the bicycle as a tool that empowers all people to be more self-reliant, healthy, and connected to their community. If this sounds like the future you want to see, then come join the team! We're seeking dedicated people that I are interested in helping us get more butts on bikes. No previous board experience required. Contact info@commonwheels.org with the subject line "Board of Directors" for more information.

Keep the rubber side down,

Team CommonWheels

P.S. As we said, CommonWheels is a non-profit. If you'd like to support future rides and programming, please consider clicking on the link below to donate!
 
Donate Now!

It’s Finally Happening! 5th Annual Hot Cocoa Ride Feb 12!

5th Annual Hot Cocoa /
Infrastructure Spotting Ride!

Hi Folks! We're sorry about the false starts this season, but the weather for Saturday looks amazing and we can't wait to see you all in person again! 

Please bring masks, helmets, and a canteen to enjoy the hot cocoa on the go, since sadly we can't stay inside and hang out! Gear up and get out for what looks like a nice sunny day this Saturday! Can't wait to see you in person!
The Details:
When: Saturday, February 12
Where: Meet in Lower Allston at The Grove (the Space between Trader Joe's and SwissBakers)
Time: Meet at 10am, leave at 10:30am
What: Visiting 3 Hot Cocoa Places
Link to Hot Cocoa Ride FB Event
Are you ready to ride outside again? Board President, Amy Ingles, will talk you through doing an ABC Quick Check to make sure your bike is ready for riding this weekend! 

We Want YOU for the CommonWheels Board!

CommonWheels Bicycle Collective is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Allston, and our mission is to use the bicycle as a tool that empowers all people to be more self-reliant, healthy, and connected to their community. If this sounds like the future you want to see, then come join the team! We're seeking dedicated people that I are interested in helping us get more butts on bikes. No previous board experience required. Contact info@commonwheels.org with the subject line "Board of Directors" for more information.

Keep the rubber side down,

Team CommonWheels

P.S. As we said, CommonWheels is a non-profit. If you'd like to support future rides and programming, please consider clicking on the link below to donate!
 
Donate Now!

Hot Chocolate Ride Postponed (again!)

The weatherman is not our friend this weekend either, so we’ll be postponing again, this time to 12/19. Same time same place, which is the Grove at 1pm with an Open Shop immediately preceding! Stay tuned to our social media for the latest updates!

Hot Chocolate Ride Postponed (again!)

The weatherman is not our friend this weekend either, so we’ll be postponing again, this time to 12/19. Same time same place, which is the Grove at 1pm with an Open Shop immediately preceding! Stay tuned to our social media for the latest updates!

Hot Chocolate Ride Postponed! More Cool Stuff Inside!

Hot Chocolate Ride Postponed!


Sorry folks! The radar looks pretty fierce this weekend! We're pushing the ride to next Saturday, same bat-time same bat-place! We don't think it's quite time for the CommonWheels Blizzard Ride and Cyclocrossorama, but maybe in the future! We're still going to have a ton of fun, but as always, keep an eye on our social media for the latest updates!
We are so thankful for all the donations on Giving Tuesday, and we wanted to let you folks know about how your donations are already being put to use! We're running a Youth Earn A Bike out of the Charlesview all winter where we're going to give donated bikes in need of repair to youth residents, and guide them through the entire process! We are so excited to bring this program to the Charlesview again, and we look forward to getting more butts on bikes! Of course, you don't only have to donate to us on tuesday! We are happily accepting donations on QGiv at the below link!

 

Donate Now!

CommonWheels x Boston University Presents: THE LIGHT BRIGADE!


Starting next week on Thursday, December 10th, we are proud to announce our collaboration with Boston University and Boston Bikes to run a weekly bike light distribution service. That's right, free! We will be outside the Agganis Arena from 4-6pm on Thursdays for the next month. Proper illumination at night time isn't just a good idea for safety, it's the law! All cyclists must have a forward facing white light and a rear facing red light for visibility. So don't get lost in a snowbank, come visit us on these Thursdays from 4-6pm at the Agganis, and let's light up the night!!

Hot Chocolate Ride Postponed! More Cool Stuff Inside!

Hot Chocolate Ride Postponed!


Sorry folks! The radar looks pretty fierce this weekend! We're pushing the ride to next Saturday, same bat-time same bat-place! We don't think it's quite time for the CommonWheels Blizzard Ride and Cyclocrossorama, but maybe in the future! We're still going to have a ton of fun, but as always, keep an eye on our social media for the latest updates!
We are so thankful for all the donations on Giving Tuesday, and we wanted to let you folks know about how your donations are already being put to use! We're running a Youth Earn A Bike out of the Charlesview all winter where we're going to give donated bikes in need of repair to youth residents, and guide them through the entire process! We are so excited to bring this program to the Charlesview again, and we look forward to getting more butts on bikes! Of course, you don't only have to donate to us on tuesday! We are happily accepting donations on QGiv at the below link!

 

Donate Now!

CommonWheels x Boston University Presents: THE LIGHT BRIGADE!


Starting next week on Thursday, December 10th, we are proud to announce our collaboration with Boston University and Boston Bikes to run a weekly bike light distribution service. That's right, free! We will be outside the Agganis Arena from 4-6pm on Thursdays for the next month. Proper illumination at night time isn't just a good idea for safety, it's the law! All cyclists must have a forward facing white light and a rear facing red light for visibility. So don't get lost in a snowbank, come visit us on these Thursdays from 4-6pm at the Agganis, and let's light up the night!!

The Hot Chocolate Ride, Giving Tuesday, and more!

 

Stay Warm With Our Hot Chocolate Ride This Weekend

We are really excited to continue our food rides, and since the weather seems to be holding out we’re going out once more, this time in search of a nice cup of hot chocolate! Since there seems to be a touch of rain in the forecast, our rain date will be the following Saturday, December 12th. Join us on a nice casual ride around Boston and Cambridge as we support some local businesses, and explore some of the new cyclist-focused infrastructure that’s been deployed! Masks required, weather appropriate gear encouraged! Keep an eye on our social media later in the week for the latest updates

Giving Tuesday

Of course, we at CommonWheels also wanted to reach out to you fine folk on today’s Giving Tuesday to ask for your support in sustaining our organization. This year has been challenging for everybody, and somethign we are fiercely proud of is just how many smiles we’ve been able to put on people’s faces. We think they’re smiling at us at least, it’s hard to tell with all the masks. Operation #Wheels4Meals is still ongoing, and we’ve made over 800 deliveries from food pantries to our neighbors and we’re going to continue to do our best to help our community over the coming months.

For those of you who don’t know, CommonWheels was started eight years ago by people who just wanted to hand out bike lights to help keep their neighbors safe at night. That grew to dragging a shopping cart full of bike tools and plopping down in parks, hollering at passerby cyclists to come grease their chains. We were born from this radical “do it yourself” mentality, and we set out to empower the residents of Allston-Brighton with everything we knew about bikes, so they too could experience the unique joy a bike ride could bring.

Since then we’ve grown, and its been an incredible journey. Our Open Shops have popped up all across Allston and Brighton, our volunteers and staff have worked with many local schools to teach youths how to ride bikes, and we’ve been able to run “Earn A Bike” programs for all sorts of communities in our neighborhood. We’ve really enjoyed all these opportunities to not only teach these technical and social skills, but to create these wonderful spaces for members of our community to grow and engage with their peers.

We’ve been running a series of youth events this summer at the Charlesview we’ve been calling the “CommonWheels Skills Drill and Ice Cream Ride” where we laid out challenge courses for our kids to practice safe riding techniques, and then we took them on a wonderful ride across the footbridge to the bike path. One of the sweetest moments every time, however, has been seeing the older siblings, many of which who have participated in previous CommonWheels programming at the Charlesview, step in, and help their younger siblings repair their bikes using the skills we taught them.

e are asking for donations on this Giving Tuesday to help us run even more programs like the Ice Cream Ride in even more places. We are grateful for any support we are given, whether it’s $80 for a case of tubes to fix flats, $15 for a set of brake cabling, or even $5 to make sure our team stays caffeinated! Of course, if you are a member of a large organization, or would like to make a large we have a few tiers of donation available below!  We accept all donations through QGiv at this link

We thank you for supporting us during this wild and crazy year, whether it’s been visiting us at the Farmers Market Open Shop, coming on the Cannoli Run, or simply just donating and volunteering your time and money. We really appreciate each and every one of you and we are so excited to bring you a ton of wonderful programs in 2021. Stay tuned for our winter group ride schedule, and as always, 

See you on the streets!

Team CommonWheels

 

Donate Here!!

The Hot Chocolate Ride, Giving Tuesday, and more!

 

Stay Warm With Our Hot Chocolate Ride This Weekend

We are really excited to continue our food rides, and since the weather seems to be holding out we’re going out once more, this time in search of a nice cup of hot chocolate! Since there seems to be a touch of rain in the forecast, our rain date will be the following Saturday, December 12th. Join us on a nice casual ride around Boston and Cambridge as we support some local businesses, and explore some of the new cyclist-focused infrastructure that’s been deployed! Masks required, weather appropriate gear encouraged! Keep an eye on our social media later in the week for the latest updates

Giving Tuesday

Of course, we at CommonWheels also wanted to reach out to you fine folk on today’s Giving Tuesday to ask for your support in sustaining our organization. This year has been challenging for everybody, and somethign we are fiercely proud of is just how many smiles we’ve been able to put on people’s faces. We think they’re smiling at us at least, it’s hard to tell with all the masks. Operation #Wheels4Meals is still ongoing, and we’ve made over 800 deliveries from food pantries to our neighbors and we’re going to continue to do our best to help our community over the coming months.

For those of you who don’t know, CommonWheels was started eight years ago by people who just wanted to hand out bike lights to help keep their neighbors safe at night. That grew to dragging a shopping cart full of bike tools and plopping down in parks, hollering at passerby cyclists to come grease their chains. We were born from this radical “do it yourself” mentality, and we set out to empower the residents of Allston-Brighton with everything we knew about bikes, so they too could experience the unique joy a bike ride could bring.

Since then we’ve grown, and its been an incredible journey. Our Open Shops have popped up all across Allston and Brighton, our volunteers and staff have worked with many local schools to teach youths how to ride bikes, and we’ve been able to run “Earn A Bike” programs for all sorts of communities in our neighborhood. We’ve really enjoyed all these opportunities to not only teach these technical and social skills, but to create these wonderful spaces for members of our community to grow and engage with their peers.

We’ve been running a series of youth events this summer at the Charlesview we’ve been calling the “CommonWheels Skills Drill and Ice Cream Ride” where we laid out challenge courses for our kids to practice safe riding techniques, and then we took them on a wonderful ride across the footbridge to the bike path. One of the sweetest moments every time, however, has been seeing the older siblings, many of which who have participated in previous CommonWheels programming at the Charlesview, step in, and help their younger siblings repair their bikes using the skills we taught them.

e are asking for donations on this Giving Tuesday to help us run even more programs like the Ice Cream Ride in even more places. We are grateful for any support we are given, whether it’s $80 for a case of tubes to fix flats, $15 for a set of brake cabling, or even $5 to make sure our team stays caffeinated! Of course, if you are a member of a large organization, or would like to make a large we have a few tiers of donation available below!  We accept all donations through QGiv at this link

We thank you for supporting us during this wild and crazy year, whether it’s been visiting us at the Farmers Market Open Shop, coming on the Cannoli Run, or simply just donating and volunteering your time and money. We really appreciate each and every one of you and we are so excited to bring you a ton of wonderful programs in 2021. Stay tuned for our winter group ride schedule, and as always, 

See you on the streets!

Team CommonWheels

 

Donate Here!!

CommonWheels November Update

November Newsletter 


Folks! Tristan here. I wanted to start off this month's update with a personal note and a huge huge thank you to everybody who has participated in one of our events this season! I was doing the end of year tally and CommonWheels has run FIFTY FIVE events since we relaunched in person programming in July. I am just absolutely floored by how amazing it's been to work with each and every one of you as we've popped up in and around our neighborhood. For those of you keeping track, we've been doing regular shops at not only the Grove and the Brighton Farmers Market, but the Charlesview, and Fanueil Gardens communities, and on street corners like Franklin St and Hano St, including today, November 19th on Franklin St from 2-6! 

Not only have we gone on taco and cannoli rides with adults, but we've had a wonderful series of Ice Cream Rides for the youths of the Charlesview community, and I've been incredibly happy to provide safe, healthy programming for everybody. It has been genuinely heartwarming in new ways every week for me, and I'm really grateful for everybody who's come to an event, whether it was just to pump tires, or to completely rebuild a craigslist find into a wonderful steed over the course of weeks. Our mission here at CommonWheels has always been "to get butts on bikes" and I don't think we could've done it any better over the chaotic past few months.

This year has been a journey for all of us, and it's been really wonderful watching this community support itself. Our collaboration "Wheels4Meals" with Allston Brighton Health Cooperative to deliver food from food pantries to individuals in our community is still ongoing, with over 800 deliveries since April, and 16,000lbs of food delivered! We still need volunteers, especially as we head into the winter, so if you have cargo space and would like to help feed your neighbors, drop us a line at info@commonwheels.org

Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you, from the bottom of my heart. We have had a wild ride these past few months, and I'm really looking forward to what comes next, both in the offseason, and in the spring. We have a lot of plans and schemes, so keep an eye on our social channels and calendars, and I hope to see all of you fine folks soon! Onto the rest of the newsletter!


thank you,

Tristan

 Winter Programming Schedule Updates!!

 

Rides

We hope you enjoyed our firefly, cannoli, and taco rides, because there's more coming! We'd like to offer a series of informal rides this winter to local restaurants all around the city. The temperatures may be dropping but that doesn't mean it's time to hang up the clip-in's! We'll be doing a Tour De Hot Chocolate on Saturday, December 5th to keep you warm! For those of you who haven't attended one of our rides, we meet at the site of our Saturday Open Shop at the Grove, which is across from Lower Allston Trader Joe's. HOWEVER, this time, in order to enjoy some sunlight we are meeting at Grove at 1:30pm! Masks are required, as always, and of course, dress warmly, with lots of zippered layers. We will be doing more cold weather rides in January and February, so again, stay tuned to our social media. Please RSVP to the Hot Chocolate Ride here!

Open Shop

With today's final Franklin St Open Shop (2p-6p), we will be reducing our schedule to purely be at the Grove on Saturdays at our new, earlier time of 11a-3p! Having consulted with our expert head mechanic, Eli, we have agreed that it's still not quite cold enough, and we're happy to hold the Shop at the Grove as long as the weather holds out, and we are forced to transition indoors. In the mean time, we gladly accept tips in the form of iced coffee, and we can and will be out in this glorious New England weather as long as possible. We do strongly recommend that you send us a message on either facebook or instagram before you arrive to better help us prepare for you, but we are absolutely here for you!
Last but not least, let's talk donations! We've been running full steam ahead all year, and we couldn't do that without help from y'all. We have ambitious plans and dreams for the Spring and in order to get there we need help from you, dear reader! We've got bikes to fix and kids to teach, and we rely on donations small and large, whether it's $8 for a set of brake pads for a kid, $80 for a case of tubes, or $800 to help us buy more repair stands. Every bit helps, and we encourage to click here to donate and help us get more butts on bikes!

CommonWheels November Update

November Newsletter 


Folks! Tristan here. I wanted to start off this month's update with a personal note and a huge huge thank you to everybody who has participated in one of our events this season! I was doing the end of year tally and CommonWheels has run FIFTY FIVE events since we relaunched in person programming in July. I am just absolutely floored by how amazing it's been to work with each and every one of you as we've popped up in and around our neighborhood. For those of you keeping track, we've been doing regular shops at not only the Grove and the Brighton Farmers Market, but the Charlesview, and Fanueil Gardens communities, and on street corners like Franklin St and Hano St, including today, November 19th on Franklin St from 2-6! 

Not only have we gone on taco and cannoli rides with adults, but we've had a wonderful series of Ice Cream Rides for the youths of the Charlesview community, and I've been incredibly happy to provide safe, healthy programming for everybody. It has been genuinely heartwarming in new ways every week for me, and I'm really grateful for everybody who's come to an event, whether it was just to pump tires, or to completely rebuild a craigslist find into a wonderful steed over the course of weeks. Our mission here at CommonWheels has always been "to get butts on bikes" and I don't think we could've done it any better over the chaotic past few months.

This year has been a journey for all of us, and it's been really wonderful watching this community support itself. Our collaboration "Wheels4Meals" with Allston Brighton Health Cooperative to deliver food from food pantries to individuals in our community is still ongoing, with over 800 deliveries since April, and 16,000lbs of food delivered! We still need volunteers, especially as we head into the winter, so if you have cargo space and would like to help feed your neighbors, drop us a line at info@commonwheels.org

Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you, from the bottom of my heart. We have had a wild ride these past few months, and I'm really looking forward to what comes next, both in the offseason, and in the spring. We have a lot of plans and schemes, so keep an eye on our social channels and calendars, and I hope to see all of you fine folks soon! Onto the rest of the newsletter!


thank you,

Tristan

 Winter Programming Schedule Updates!!

 

Rides

We hope you enjoyed our firefly, cannoli, and taco rides, because there's more coming! We'd like to offer a series of informal rides this winter to local restaurants all around the city. The temperatures may be dropping but that doesn't mean it's time to hang up the clip-in's! We'll be doing a Tour De Hot Chocolate on Saturday, December 5th to keep you warm! For those of you who haven't attended one of our rides, we meet at the site of our Saturday Open Shop at the Grove, which is across from Lower Allston Trader Joe's. HOWEVER, this time, in order to enjoy some sunlight we are meeting at Grove at 1:30pm! Masks are required, as always, and of course, dress warmly, with lots of zippered layers. We will be doing more cold weather rides in January and February, so again, stay tuned to our social media. Please RSVP to the Hot Chocolate Ride here!

Open Shop

With today's final Franklin St Open Shop (2p-6p), we will be reducing our schedule to purely be at the Grove on Saturdays at our new, earlier time of 11a-3p! Having consulted with our expert head mechanic, Eli, we have agreed that it's still not quite cold enough, and we're happy to hold the Shop at the Grove as long as the weather holds out, and we are forced to transition indoors. In the mean time, we gladly accept tips in the form of iced coffee, and we can and will be out in this glorious New England weather as long as possible. We do strongly recommend that you send us a message on either facebook or instagram before you arrive to better help us prepare for you, but we are absolutely here for you!
Last but not least, let's talk donations! We've been running full steam ahead all year, and we couldn't do that without help from y'all. We have ambitious plans and dreams for the Spring and in order to get there we need help from you, dear reader! We've got bikes to fix and kids to teach, and we rely on donations small and large, whether it's $8 for a set of brake pads for a kid, $80 for a case of tubes, or $800 to help us buy more repair stands. Every bit helps, and we encourage to click here to donate and help us get more butts on bikes!