Franklinton Cycleworks

The best Bike co-​op in the Midwest. Truly a bike co-​op for people who bike. All volunteers truly love biking who care and show you how Fix and maintain your bicycle. An important piece in the community of Columbus Ohio

Columbus’s westside bicycle co-​op definitely has it together. They participate in a number of community events and have several outreach programs to benefit people in need, things that went missing over time at the other co-​op in town. Their space is well organized, large, and inviting. Work areas are open and accessible, and on no visits have I seen anyone barred from the work floor, which I have seen elsewhere.
Not only that, but these are great guys who truly want to see bicycling take hold in this city. They went out of their way to help me fix up a number of bikes I was readying for a ride I was hosting for a large group of out-​of-​towners. I brought in, I think, 8 bikes that were broken in some manner or other, and left with 8 functioning bikes. Some of these problems I could address myself, but the volunteer staff was happy to help with those I couldn’t.
They even let me store the bikes there for several days before and after the ride. One of the volunteers even accompanied us on the ride. All of my experiences with Franklinton Cycleworks have been fantastic. I consider it the best example of bicycle advocacy in the city, and we have quite a few bike advocacy groups at this point so that’s saying something.

Excellent co-​op! Friendly, helpful volunteers, big space for open shop (twice the size of Third Hand, which equals more room for more workers), plenty of communal tools. I’ve met one if the managers, Jonathan (via phone), and he was more than willing to help out with a community event that a friend and I are organizing — knowledgable management!
I got to the shop at 7 pm — it’s Tuesday night Volunteer Nite. Volunteers come and help clean up the place, organize items, converse to get everyone on the same page. Thus, it was not crowded at all, which was a plus (I didn’t have to worry about talking over other people, or getting their attention).
I am thoroughly excited to spend time fixing up bikes for our event. I’m planning on taking their Bike Maintainance course, they are hoping to offer it again starting in June. I will then be more of a help during volunteer hours, because I’ll get a chance to apply the knowledge I learned in class. Like they say: if you don’t use it, you’ll loose it: D

I checked out the co-​op during the Go West! neighborhood festival (good stuff). There’s community outreach to teach residents the how-​tos of biking and repair and you can stop in to get help repairing your bike when they’re open (Mondays and Saturdays right now). It all depends on volunteers, so if you know how to fix bikes unlike myself (I almost always manage to make things worse) you might want to consider getting involved in this community asset. Not only that, but they’re working on getting a coffee bar (Poverello) in the front up and running (the pour over I had was delish), as if the bike co-​op part wasn’t already the best thing to happen to W Broad in years. Hopefully, the right Columbusites will take notice and there will be more good places opening up nearby this year so that there will be more to bike to in the area.