Description
Earn-a-Bike is The WRENCH's flagship youth education course. It is hands-on and practical. It builds life-long skills and self confidence.
Over a series of two hour sessions, under the direction of our bike mechanics, the students learn by doing.They strip down and then rebuild a used bike, which becomes theirs to take home at the end of the course.
Earn-a-Bike Core Skills - 16 hours (2hr sessions for 8 weeks)
Students will get hands-on experience with the following areas while refurbishing their bike.
- Familiarization with bike repair specific tools and techniques.
- Familiarization with bike parts and mechanical systems.
- Basic maintenance skills: proper cleaning and lubrication, adjusting chains and brakes.
- Basic repairs skills: Tire tube patching and replacement, tire changes, replacing brake pads.
- Basic tune up skills: Front and rear hubs, bottom brackets, gears, and brakes.
- Knowledge on proper helmet fit, bike lights, best practice to lock a bike, and traffic skills.
Each Students receives:
- Freshly serviced and safe bike
- New u-lock
- New bike safety lights
- New helmet.
Cost $4000
Earn a Bike Plus, 20 hours (2hr sessions for 10 weeks)
This 10 week course includes all the core skills plus adds two group riding sessions out in the community. Here there is time to focus on riding skills, use of active transit routes and general traffic safety.
Each Students receives:
- Freshly serviced and safe bike
- new u-lock
- New bike safety lights
- New helmet
- 2 x 2hr group riding sessions with instruction.
Cost $5000
Notes
Earn a Bike typically takes place at our repair shop located at 1057 Logan. However, it is possible to be offered at your location (typically a school) if you have access to a bike shop or equivalent space with ample storage.
Participants: 6 – 8 participants per group, ages 9 and up. Groups work best when participants are of similar age. We ask groups to provide at least one chaperone to support students’ learning.
The WRENCH works to remove barriers to building, repairing and maintaining bicycles. In this work, we aim to encourage participation from groups who have faced barriers and exclusion from learning and participating in bicycle repair. For this reason, we are requesting that at least 50% of Earn a Bike class participants must be girls, two-spirit or trans youth.
New dates open every 10 weeks. Inquire by phone at 204 296-3389, or by email at: Lasha Mackedenski at [email protected]
Fall 2022 Earn A Bike programming was generously supported by Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities.
photo credit: The Winnipeg Foundation