Cycle Sports Concepts bike shop on Main Street in Chattanooga recently helped make biking possible for young riders who might not have had a chance to ride otherwise. As the city's Specialized Bicycle dealership, Cycle Sports Concepts helped the Southeast Youth Corps apply for a grant from the manufacturer that provided five kids bicycles to the charitable organization.
Sunday with Jittery Joe
Feeling a bit frisky despite the chilly weather? Well then, the Chattanooga Bike Club has just what you're looking for.Most Sundays throughout the winter, the CBC hosts the "Sunday with Jittery Joe" ride from 1 to 4 p.m. starting from the Red Bank Bi-Lo parking lot. Snow or temperatures below 35 degrees will cancel the ride.For more info on this weekly winter ride, contact "Jittery" Joe Nivert at 423-774-0770 or at joenivert@yahoo.com.
The grant was made possible through Specialized's "First Gear" program which has the goal "to build a world in which every child has use of a bicycle, skills to operate it confidently, and places to ride it safely."
According to the Southeast Youth Corps' website, the bikes provided by Specialized will help build the organization's capacity for the Trips for Kids' "Earn-A-Bike" program as well as the bicycle program at Howard School in conjunction with the Lookout Mountain Conservancy. The bikes are expected to be in use by young people on Stringer's Ridge and Lookout Mountain starting this month.
In addition to the bicycles that Cycle Sports Concepts helped facilitate through Specialized, shop owner Eric Wagner also provided cycling gloves and other support to help with this effort to build bicycling opportunities for everyone.
"As a small business, you want to give back to your community," Wagner says. "We're here for a profit and to make money, but you want to make sure you're plugging some of that money back and making sure that some kids who maybe can't afford the bikes that we have get the chance to ride. It's all about allowing kids a chance to get out and ride."