The Chester Cycling Team is so much fun! We're a group of students from Chester High School, and Mr. Jeff is our coach. We're all looking to be fast because we all feel the need for speed. We are going to ride to Swarthmore College and Ridley Creek State Park and also take home bicycles that we work on.

For more information, please visit our page: Chester Cycling Team

Great news everyone! I am now able to work full time in Chester and live in Chester. Certainly a different career path for a Swarthmore College graduate, but I like it here, and I want to be here. However, I had to jump through so many hoops to get here, and I wish there was an easier way for others to do this, because I really do feel like I am out here doing this by myself.

A really great idea I thought of while visiting Haverford's Center for Peace & Global Citizenship is if there was a program like Haverford House or Philly Fellows in Chester. Read more on Jeff's Blog: A New Day. A new Chester.

Bike Works is now close partners with the Chester Housing Authority! This is exciting news because nonprofits are usually very liquid, but because Housing Authorities don't go away, Bike Works is now around to stay!

Now Bike Works is able to live out it's ambitions for being beyond bikes to being a vehicle (literally) for youth and community to succeed as leaders. The CHA provides us with transportation, computer labs, financial support, and support services for residents and families.

Bike Works is still looking for volunteers for summer programming. Our Saturday drop-ins will operate at their usual time of 11:00am to 2:00pm on Saturdays. There is a new program starting, the Cash Flow Club that will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:00pm to 6:00pm.

If interested please contact info@chesterbikes.org to get involved or see our Youth Programs page for more information.

More changes that were due for a while are finally happening with the website! Let me know what you think! Contact me if you have any ideas or suggestions: info@chesterbikes.org.

To confess, I am actually not the best web programmer... and I limped by my Introductory Computer Science class with a B. All of the graphics here are cut and pasted with the Stone Age program, Paint. Nevertheless, it fits within Bike Work's standard operation procedures, that a group of idealistic kids without any real world experience can work together and get something done! But let me know if you have any web experience :)

Thanks to all our volunteers who helped out this semester! We completed a successful semester worth of youth classes and a graduation ceremony yesterday, where nine lucky kids took home their hard earned bikes. Check our facebook page or this site for pictures. This is now our third Earn-a-Bike class and group of children who are now eligible for bigger and better things (mostly bike related).

We'll have Saturday programming for those unlucky souls who already need their bike repaired, and then we'll be embarking on adventures across Chester (on bikes and with helmets). We're also starting a program for those more mechanically gifted with wrenches and possibly a cycling team. Stay tuned!

Welcome to the official homepage for the Chester location of Neighborhood Bike Works. So we've come a long way since the beginning of last semester, and certainly since the year before that. I'm not quite sure what to write on this blog yet… and who's going to actually read it. Most of the pages still have “Coming Soon!" on them... check back to see what's new!

For suggestions contact either: Jeff Cao at info@chesterbikes.org or Will Hopkins at will@chesterbikes.org

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