Sal
Shop Coordinator (part-time staff)
Manages the shop floor, orders parts, and sets up the tent. Has been fixing bikes and building community for over a decade.
About
A bike shop that belongs to the neighborhood
Imaginal Cycles has been teaching people to fix their own bikes since 2026. We are volunteer-run, member-governed, and stubbornly non-commercial.
Our mission
To make cycling possible for everyone in Chicago by providing tools, teaching skills, and putting refurbished bikes into the hands of people who need them — regardless of ability to pay.
How this started
In 2026, a few people who wanted to see more bicycles in their neighborhood pooled their tools, set up a tent, and began fixing bikes.
What Imaginal means to us
Caterpillars contain a group of cells called an imaginal disc. These cells contain the potential butterfly hidden inside the caterpillar, are essential to the process of transformation. We believe that teaching people to maintain and repair bicycles can be a support and a lifeline, a way of transforming their lives for the better. It's more than just about transportation for us though. We believe good, plentiful, and inexpensive bicycles are an essential part of transforming the society we live in to one that is more equitable, sustainable, and just. We know bikes are a small part of this transformation, but an essential one. Everyone has a role in that transformation, and we're proud to be doing our part.
What we believe
- A bike is transportation, not a toy. For a lot of our neighbors it is the difference between making a shift and losing a job. We treat repairs with that seriousness.
- Teaching beats fixing. A bike we repair comes back broken. A person we teach does not.
- Repair is climate work. Every bike we keep rolling is a bike not manufactured and a car trip not taken.
- Bike shops have an intimidation problem, and it keeps out exactly the people who most need cheap transportation. Fixing that is part of our repair mission.
- Inexpensive dependable bikes make the world a better place. Life is better when everyone can travel to reach the resources they need. Everyone who wants a bicycle deserves one. Your contribution can help make that kind of world possible.
Who runs this
Once we have funding, we will have one part-time paid coordinator. Everyone else is a volunteer. Right now everyone is a volunteer.
Arielle
Founding Volunteer
Social media maven, bike wrangler.
Books
Founding Volunteer
Tech support, applies for grants.
Nick
Founding Volunteer
Award winning teacher, unofficial advisor and spiritual leader.
How we are governed
We are a not-for-profit project that coordinates with the 501c3 non-profit Children First Fund. As we are small, major descisions are made by consensus.
Code of conduct
The shop is open to everyone, and staying open to everyone requires rules. Harassment, slurs, and unsolicited "help" that talks down to someone all get you asked to leave.
Community
This shop would not be possible without the supporting groudwork of Imagine Englewood If... and local teachers from Chicago Public Schools. The community leaders at Imagine Englewood If... was responsible for identifying and publicizing the historical, architectural, and cultural significance of the building where we work from. Without their advocacy, the site would not have continued to be useable. We build this project with respect for their continuing leadership in the community.
Chicago Public School teachers and students are the first advocates of bike culture in the neighborhood, and are responsible for guidance and support of the shop's operations. We are grateful for their continued support and partnership.
Transparency
We beleive organizations should be accountable to their members and the community that they serve. We beleive that certain kinds of transparency are essential to that process of accountability, and granting that transparency builds trust. Mutual trust is essential for building the kind of community we would like to live in.
As we're just starting out, we don't have much in the way of statistics or numbers to report, but we plan to share those things online as soon as they're available.
We have feelings about the use of large language models (LLM) and the diverse group of tools collectively called artificial intelligence (AI). We are committed to transparency in our use of these tools, and we are open to feedback from our community. A large language model was used in the preparation of this website. For details on how and why an LLM was used, visit our AI transparency page.
Running a modern bike shop requires a lot of software tools, and we are committed to using free and open source software (FOSS) whenever possible. In cases where an appropriate FOSS tool is not available, we may write one ourselves. If neither of those options are available, we may use an proprietary tool. You can find the list of software tools we use on our software transparency page, and the software we've written ourselves in the Imaginal Cycles code repository.
Come see the place
The fastest way to understand what we are is to come and see it for yourself. Bring a bike, or do not.