Scott Nuelken (l) makes a customer happy.
Learning to ride a bike is among the most exciting things that happens to little kids. While the sense of accomplishment builds confidence and the ability to reduce travel time contributes to the overall quality of a youngster’s life, the sheer joy of hopping onto the seat and peddling away is mystical. Most children remember that feeling long after they’ve retired their last bicycle.
The folks at Cola Town Bike Collective (CTBC) are trying to help as many kids as possible to experience the joy of riding bikes. Cola Town is a non-profit full-service bicycle shop that provides low and no-cost access to transportation for people in need of bikes and bike maintenance across the Midlands.
After Scott Nuelken began working on bikes part-time to heal after a failed marriage, things just sort of grew. From a vacant storage space near Whaley Street to a more permanent location on Superior Street in Rosewood, and now a roomy workshop two doors down from the home of Captain Telegram, Cola Town Bike Collective has expanded, both in space and in mission.
Nuelken was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, into a military family. “We moved to Fort Polk and then to Germany in the early ’80s. In 1986, we moved to Columbia, and I’ve been here ever since,” he says.
He got his first bike, a Blue Max, in Germany. And he bought his first road bike in the ’90s. Both of them are still with him, hanging from the shop’s rafters.
Cola Town is located at 711 Elmwood Avenue and provides a wide range of new and used bikes and parts for sale to support its cause. Anyone from the community is welcome to service their own bikes at the shop during regular shop hours. Cola Town hosts community events and offers public education on safe bicycle use.
Nuelken gives biking credit for restarting his life after divorce, saying, “People in long term relationships tend to lose close friends as time passes. I realized I could go biking by myself. Bicycling was a great way to emotionally, mentally, and physically focus on myself. It was my therapist.”
As time passed, his friend list grew back. Most of them also rode bikes. “There’s a beautiful community around biking. All types of people with all kinds of ideas and backgrounds rode bikes. And all they talk about is bikes. After a while we developed the idea of a bike collective, primarily to have a place to work on our bikes,” he says.
Nuelken gives part of the credit to the Boy Scouts and his father. He used the lessons he learned in scouting and the examples his father set to try to establish an organization to make things better for bikers. The idea eventually expanded to include less fortunate bikers that couldn’t afford costly bike repairs.
“We saw a greater need than just focusing on amateurs who ride bikes. There are tons of articles about Invisible Cyclists,” Nuelken says. “Those are people who can’t afford the expense of a car. They use bikes for all transportation needs: Driving to work, shopping for food, even medical care. Those folks are rarely included in government studies about bike use. We realized those people needed our help more than a bunch of rag tag guys hanging out, having a good time.”
The focus of Cola Town widened to include ways to provide assistance for those folks unable to meet the high cost of bike repair. In addition to rebuilding old bikes and offering reduced or free services, there are currently 12 bike stations being maintained by Cola Town Bike Collective. Each one features a pump and attached tools for anyone needing to work on their bike.
The Reliable Transportation Initiative is a long-standing program providing bicycles to folks in the community. Working with partners who help Cola Town find the greatest need, bikes are given to individuals who lack reliable transportation to get back and forth from their jobs, grocery store, health services, or other vital needs. These bikes are donated by others in the community, then serviced, and provided to a new owner at no cost.
In addition to offering the bicycles, the Cola Town Bike Collective will service and maintain these bikes to ensure that they are functional and safe for their users.
“For every bike we sell, we donate four back to the community. For every paid repair, we make five free or low-cost repairs for those in need,” says Nuelken.
This program has helped countless people achieve a more stable living situation and has deeply embedded the Cola Town Bike Collective volunteers and staff as a vital resource for Midlands community members.
Another primary initiative is working with local government to assure bicycle safety for both bike riders and vehicles. Regan Freeman, Cola Town’s director of advocacy, has been working really hard with local government groups to make sure any newly paved roads that qualify are including bike lanes. Programs are also under way to improve trails and walkways.
In addition to these services, Cola Town offers Sprocket, an app to assist bike riders with almost anything. Sprocket features links to safe and rideable routes around Columbia, locations of bike sharing stations, and repair station locations. It even identifies bike friendly businesses.
Biking offers transportation, occasional tribal comradery, fitness, and sightseeing. Traveling down a wooded path or a paved highway offers the rider the ability to slow life to a crawl and just casually admire the scenery, experiencing things and sounds and emotions never noticed while whizzing by at the speed limit.
Cola Town Bike Collective is dedicated to the idea that anyone who wants to share these feelings is able to.
For more information, visit colatownbikes.com or ridesprocket.com/#ath.
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