The Bike Kitchen

Bozeman, Day 10, 6/15/2024

I dropped my car off at Firestone first thing this morning, and immediately regretted not bringing a bike on my trip. I debated doing so for months before I left, and eventually decided that I didn’t want to spend money on a bike and a rack. I felt differently, however, when I realized that I had a two mile walk to Wild Joe’s Coffee Spot from Firestone. At Wild Joe’s, I started scouring Facebook Marketplace for a bike. I found a couple cheap ones and sent offers, but was still apprehensive since I wanted to make sure I got a good one that also was the right size.

If I got a bike, I would also need a rack. There’s a bike and ski shop in Duluth that helps people attach racks to their vehicles, so I started searching through the abundance of bike shops’ websites in Bozeman (people in Bozeman love to bike). I went through about six websites before I found the Bozeman Bike Kitchen, a non-profit whose mission is to get free or low-cost bikes to the citizens of Bozeman. They’re also a do-it-yourself bike mechanic shop with mechanics on hand to assist you if you need it. Another one of their offerings is “build a bike;” in exchange for eight hours of volunteering (no bike knowledge necessary), you can build a bike for free. This Bike Kitchen was exactly the haven I was looking for—I started the two mile walk there.

I was greeted at the door by a woman with gray hair, glasses, and dangly bike chain earrings. I explained to her my situation—that I was traveling by myself, having van issues, that I was looking for a cheap transportation alternative, and that I didn’t have any bike experience, but was willing to find something to do to achieve the eight hours of service to earn a bike. The woman, Rachel, started off my time at the Bike Kitchen with a smile and a tour.

I immediately liked Rachel; she was quirky, cheerful, welcoming, and felt like someone I could trust. She brought me around the showroom, the break room and bathroom, a couple of the back rooms with shelves upon shelves of bike parts, the backyard with well over 100 of donated bikes, the demo area, and finally the garage where bike mechanics and enthusiasts were repairing and tuning up bikes. She introduced me to Kara, the Bike Kitchen manager; Kara’s kindness and casualness was immediately apparent, and I was getting more excited about finding the Bike Kitchen. Since I didn’t have any bike mechanic experience, Kara suggested having me roll tubes.

Rachel explained that rolling tubes was a boring, but necessary protocol at the Bike Kitchen. If a donated bike has parts that are beyond repair, the demo team will take them apart and keep the working parts for customers to buy or take for free; innertubes of course being one of those parts. Before sorting them away into filing cabinets by size and valve type, the tubes needed to be inflated and left overnight to test whether or not they hold air. They had two wooden poles as tall as I am in the yard with tubes that were ready for sorting and tubes that needed inflating. Rachel grabbed an armful of the former and hung them up on a bike stand in the garage.

She walked me through the process: if the tube holds air, write the size down on a piece of paper, remove the valve needle to deflate, tightly roll the tube up and use a rubber band (cut from tubes that do not hold air) to secure it, write the size on the tube, replace the valve needle, and sort into the appropriate filing cabinet drawer. Simple and repetitive, exactly the kind of task I don’t mind doing at all. 

I wasn’t rolling tubes for too long before Rachel introduced another volunteer to me named Logan. Logan was hoping to learn more about bike mechanics on the weekends this summer while he wasn’t working, but as there were already too many volunteers on this busy Saturday at the Bike Kitchen, Rachel brought him over to roll tubes with me. Logan was quiet, which I appreciate, but we still made good conversation. I would much rather converse with a quiet person than a talkative one; quiet people don’t tend to see interactions as a speed-based competition like many talkative people tend to. We talked about writing, AI, what he’s studying in college, my past job as a local newspaper reporter, and his time living abroad. Coincidentally, he was from a town in Wisconsin, so we talked about the differences between the Great Lakes Region and the West as well. 

He asked why I was volunteering, so I told him about my road trip saga and current van issues, that I wanted a way to get around that wasn’t just my own two legs, and that I would never turn down the opportunity to get something for free—especially something that would be otherwise expensive. He seemed a bit amused that I intended to work the whole eight hours to get a bike. The Bike Kitchen would close before I finished my eight hours, and they wouldn’t be open again until Tuesday, but I didn’t mind spending an extra few days in Bozeman to get my bike; the weather was supposed to be bad on Monday and Tuesday, and I would rather face it in Bozeman than on the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park.

I aired up the remainder of the tubes on the “to-be-tested” pole so that they would be ready for rolling when I came back in on Tuesday. I said bye to Rachel and started on my two mile walk to Planet Fitness in the rain to wait on a phone call update from Firestone. They had called me a few hours before, informing me that they couldn’t hear the sound I was talking about and that what I might be hearing is my supplies jostling around in the back of my van and in my cargo box. I told them it had to be driven a little bit for the whistling sound to be audible, and that it was distinguishable from the other sounds I was familiar with my van making; they said they would take it for another test drive and check in with me later.

As I started into the rain, Rachel called after me and asked if I wanted a ride to wherever I was going—honestly, I could’ve cried at her offer. On the way to Planet Fitness, she told me that when she was a young woman, she drove by herself  from Massachusetts to Montana. She also gave me her phone number and address so that if all was well with my van, I could park in front of her house for the remainder of my time in Bozeman—again, I could’ve cried.

After about an hour of uncomfortably sitting in the Planet Fitness locker room eating Cheez-Its and a Nature Valley bar, I called Firestone—they had ten minutes until close and I still hadn’t heard back from them about my van. I was informed that the mechanic’s second test drive still didn’t produce the sound. I walked two miles and paid $50 to pick it up. As I waited in line, Rachel texted me, inviting me over to have dinner with her and her husband Dave. I was elated—not only was I going to get free food, but also have the opportunity to talk to some (what I’ve so far thought) interesting people. A big reason for taking this road trip was just to solo-travel and sightsee, but I also hoped for the opportunity to meet interesting people—I like the idea of having friends around the country.

Dave was just as nice and welcoming as Rachel. He cooked me a burger with cheese and gave me their last cup of homemade chicken noodle soup. Rachel and Dave were easy to talk to, and it was apparent how much they liked each other from their body language towards each other and how they worked as a team in conversation and from what they told me, in life; I immediately hoped that Kilen and I would be like them in the future. After dinner, they gave me a tour of some of the walking trails in Bozeman. This included pointing out Frog Rock (a rock towards the east that is shaped like a frog, in case you couldn’t guess), Peet’s Hill, which gives a full 360 degree view of the city and mountains surrounding it, and a hidden creek in the woods that reminded me of the forests in Minnesota even before Dave mentioned that the magical hiding spot gave '“a taste of Minnesota.” 

Sleeping in Rachel and Dave’s quiet neighborhood was so much cozier than the Walmart parking lot. They even left their back door open for me so I could brush my teeth at night and use the restroom if I needed to. Before I retired to my van for the night, Rachel invited me in for a frittata breakfast in the morning.