The Recyclery Collective

This place is the best! The staff is friendly and helpful and they work with you to help you repair a bike.

This place is fantastic. Whenever I’m in new towns i like to visit their local bicycle coops. I stopped by last night to see the place, and i was greeted right away by one of the volunteers who showed me around and got me invoved with helping their customers.
I can’t say enough about the positive impact this self sustainable non profit has on it’s community. Ill stop by again for sure when I’m in town. Thanks alot!

This is my go-​to place for bike repairs and, gosh, I smile every time I walk in. I love their attitude: they never try to shake you down or encourage you to buy stuff you don’t need, they’re patient, they’re kind, they are genuinely jazzed about teaching and learning about bikes, and they are just all-​round decent people. Fixing my bike myself under the watchful eye of the Recyclery staff is rarely the fastest or most effective option, but it’s the cheapest and also the most satisfying. I walk out of there knowing how to do stuff and feeling great.
Buy your bikes from them, leave extra money if you can, and enjoy this terrific neighborhood institution.

I’ve worked with Bicycle co-​ops in California, and have never seen anything close to the clean, professional atmosphere at the Recyclery. Tools aren’t strewn about, they have actual workbenches with everything you need to get going. It’s just a fantastic organization that I donate to whenever possible.

After my review, the owner contacted me and eventually gave me a full refund for the bike I purchased. I also spoke to a store associate who said that they are looking into implementing a procedure for a service guarantee. They also noted that their procedures are decided by committee, which I think is pretty neat! Another sales associate noted that they have never had issues with their refurbs to this degree before.
Although my initial purchase was so disappointing, I believe that this is the best possible outcome. I truly appreciate The Recyclery’s effort to do right by their customers, and that they are sincere in their community mission. The fact that they refunded my purchase in full sends a clear message that their priority is community and that they value business accountability.

This place is amazing — a bike shop with seriously great prices that benefits the community. I bought a used Schwinn road bike here in September for way cheaper than anything I could find on Craigslist. Also, the refurbishing job they did was very thorough and I felt confident that I was buying a bike that wouldn’t immediately crap out on me. The staff was also really friendly and helpful when it came to choosing the right size bike for me. I’ve never been to one of their bike workshops, but I’m thinking about taking a class this summer to learn how to do bike tune-​ups — so cool that they offer those!
When you go, make sure you go early (like as soon as the sale starts, or even be there a bit before it opens) — that way you’ll get your pick of all the bikes. Also, if you don’t find what you’re looking for right away definitely come back again since the inventory is so variable. I recommend this place to everyone looking for a bike in Chicago.

This place is awesome!
I went to The Recyclery looking for a bike during one of their Saturday morning sales — I’m only in Chicago a few months, and I desperately wanted a beater to get around town (the train and buses are fine, but for fast little trips, bicycles can’t be beat). When I showed up, there weren’t many bikes left, and they were all out of my price range — as they should have been, they were nice! — but Jesse took the time to chat with me and tell me about at least five other places in Chicago that would have good bike selections in my price range. Super friendly and honest — can’t say that about a lot of other places I’ve been to.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks after I had found a bike (a decent, cheap-​as-​dirt beater). I had a bad blowout after shredding my rear tire passing a construction site — grrf! I went to one of the Recyclery’s open workshops to repair my tire.
It was fast.
It was easy.
More important for a broke-​ass student like me, it was cheap.
$ 5 for a used tire in good condition, $ 5 for a new inner tube, and an incredibly reasonable suggested donation for all of the help I got from their knowledgeable and friendly staff (thanks Tippy!!). This was a fantastic option for me, since obviously, I didn’t drag all of my bike tools from California to Chicago.
I am definitely going back to this place while I’m in, and I hope that the Recyclery gets and keeps a good following from the local folks. I’m so glad they exist, and you will be too!

Good place for open workshop, but I wouldn’t donate any high end bikes to them. The staff there keep the high end bikes for themselves (much like Working Bikes).
It’s fine for open workshop and for donating beater bikes but, if you want to make a meaningful donation to a like organization, I’d recommend West Town Bikes.

I have discovered this place and now it is my second home [= If you love bikes, want to learn how to wrench on them, and help out the Chicago community, then this is the place for you. If your also looking for a nice vintage ride to get around town on, they have a wonderful selection every saturday morning. Get there early, they go fast! Everyone is really cool, and the instructors are great! I went to the overhaul class and got my bike tuned up just as good as a professional bike shop, and they showed me how to do it all myself! Now I am volunteering there and couldn’t be happier. Open shop ours are great for giving me access to a full bike shop without the expense of buying all the tools, and there are a lot of tools! and rock solid bolted bike stands.
Support the collective, go check out the recyclery!!! go to the webpage for calendar and class info.
Great for those people located on the North side of Chicago!

Exactly what you want in a community bike shop. Friendly, down to earth, realistic. I wish I lived close enough to take advantage of them more often.
They will help you hands-​on with your own bike, or sell you a fixed-​up second-​hand bike. They are not swindlers, they work with their hearts and hands.
If you are interested in learning more about bikes, or the community, or just want to support a good business then go to The Recyclery.
On auction days the bike prices vary, but they are extremely reasonable. I recommend the workshops, however, as the best way to meet the staff.

Community! This is what the biking culture finds very important… and this is what centers The Recyclery’s personality.
The staff are very very helpful. They have clearly been fixing bikes for a long time, and teaching others, so their educational approach shines through and they are truly skilled problem solvers.
They totally saved my bacon on replacing a rear-​wheel!
The community of other cyclists is welcoming and helpful as well.
Their parts prices are less than even Amazon, so it’s likely to be a deal for the repair as well.
Yes, I agree with reviewer «imran»… go to The Recyclery and learn to love your bike!

Have I already written a review for this place? I forget, I’ll do one anyways cuz I’m on fire right now. Kudos to this place for taking out the time to actually TEACH how to love your bike. And they teach very well (from a very scientific perspective). They model the skill first and then ask you to try. And jump in fairly quickly to provide feedback.
This is of course if they don’t have too many people looking for assistance. If you’re as green (and anxious to learn) as I am about bikes in general, you should consider calling ahead of time and asking how busy they expect to be. Because I’ve been there where they asked me to do a bunch of shit and gave me some tools. And I blanked and no one could help me for a solid ten to fifteen because they were busy assisting others. Don’t let that happen to you.
This bike shop is the least bit pretentious and all about helping.