Alberta Bike Swap

Every week is a beautiful reminder of what community means, and this week has it all—from mechanical volunteering to local history! 🚴‍♂️❤️
🛠️ We are still busy rebuilding and refurbishing bicycles with our long-standing partners at Chinook Kiwanis. It’s an incredible multi-year partnership, and we love seeing some of our regular Alberta Bike Swap volunteers join in. If you want to help out and get some grease on your hands, please DM us so we can put you in touch with the team!
🏡 This Saturday, June 20th, is Calgary’s Neighbour Day. It’s a wonderful annual reminder of how neighbours helped neighbors during the historic Calgary floods. To support our local communities and keep their celebrations green and active, our mobile bike racks are heading out to several neighbourhood events this weekend!
💡 On the innovation side, Laura had the true honour of judging Startup Canada again this week, hearing brilliant, game-changing ideas from entrepreneurs across the nation. At the same time, Chris has been putting in serious hours teaching various levels of CAN-BIKE cycling education to highly engaged cyclists.
🐝 When we aren't doing bike work, we are gardening! We love our native landscape garden filled with bees (Laura's parents kept bees!). Check out the photo of our 10 kg cat, Bob, showing off his toes next to a native Rosy Pussytoe flower. Tell us in the comments... who wore it better? 🐱🌸

It has been a week full of miles, milestones, and making people happy! 🚲❤️

We recently had the privilege of donating a tri-bike to Wild Rose Women’s Events. When we handed it over, both of us said, "This bike is going to make someone very happy." At the end of the day, being a conduit for that kind of community joy is exactly why we do this work.

To give you a peek behind the curtain: yes, we are senior citizens, and yes, we managed to clock between 35,000 and 40,000 steps per swap event recently! We kept the momentum going just long enough to pull Laura’s 97-year-old "superager" mother out of her garden for a quick visit. She may be deaf, but she can still likely wobble circles around most 30-year-olds!

Education has also been front and center. Chris just finished instructing a CAN-BIKE cycling safety course hosted by the Beaumont Library. They beautifully agreed to allow a very keen young gal to join the class, and it was a reminder of how powerful real cycling education is. We are so grateful to the increasing number of libraries that recognize the immense value of providing legitimate, standardized cycling training to their permanent and summer staff.

The momentum isn't slowing down. This upcoming week is going to be full of bikes, Calgary Climate Week, and an exciting time connecting with change-makers at the Mayor's Environmental Expo. Thank you for riding along with us! 🏙️🌿

Some weeks remind us exactly why we do this.

This week alone we had the privilege of helping get a milestone bike loaded into a shipping container headed to Malawi, supporting a local youth bike milestone, finding a new rider for a beautiful triathlon setup, and rebuilding donated bikes that will help women move forward.

We helped support Bicycles for Humanity - Calgary Chapter as they prepared their 10,000th bike shipment for Malawi. We also celebrated alongside Kiwanis Club of Calgary Chinook as they connected their 10,000th bike with a youth who needed it.

Then there are the quieter stories that mean just as much.

A tri-bike with carrying case and two extra wheel sets found a new home after its owner—now in his 90s—decided his racing days were complete. A bike that carried goals and adventures now gets a second chapter.

And in between all of that, we rebuilt donated bikes supporting and Not In My City.

This is what a week looks like for us.
Bikes.
Friendship.
People helping people.
Organizations that play nicely together.
Thousands of small moments that become big community impact.

Next stop: Calgary Climate Week, where Chris will be speaking about CAN-BIKE and the role education plays in safer, more confident cycling.

Thanks to everyone who shares tools, time, stories, donations, and belief in what bikes can do. ❤️🚲

Missed Edmonton Bike Swap? There are a lot of bikes available at Bike Edmonton this weekend. Hope to see you there!

Here's some of the bikes that are ready to go for tomorrow's sale!

Sale starts at 11am, Saturday May 16th, in the Bike Edmonton Parking lot, 10612 105 Ave.

Please dress for the weather - it's going to be a bit chilly.

We will have adult bikes in sizes XS through Large. There will be bikes to fit most teenagers and taller tweens, but there won't be any kids' bikes with 24" wheels or smaller. Our volunteers can help you choose the right size and style of bike for your needs.

There will be a wide selection of rigid mountain bikes, hardtails, and hybrids from the 1980s to 2010s. Most of the fully refurbished bikes (green tags) are between $300 and $400. The quick-tune bikes (yellow tags) tuned up by our volunteers are mostly between $100 and $200. We take debit, cash, visa & mastercard.

We encourage you to take transit or bike/scooter share to our sale and ride your new bike home! Nearby parking is limited, so please follow all signage & regulations, and be kind to our neighbours. We are conveniently located a block from MacEwan LRT station, and there are park and ride lots at other LRT stations.

We will have locks, bells, lights, helmets, and other basic accessories for sale. For accessories that are more time consuming to install, like fenders, racks, and kickstand, we ask that you return to the shop during regular hours to select and install.

We look forward to seeing you Saturday!