CINCINNATI — An Ohio group is trying to make sure you can ride safely on two wheels. They’re starting a string of pop-up bike shops.

What You Need To Know

  • Tri-state Trails is in the middle of a string of pop-up bike shops 

  • The group sets up shop at parks across the greater Cincinnati area and repairs bikes at no cost 

  • They are paying for the repairs with grants and donations and plans to host pop up shops throughout the summer

Caitlin Sparks is an avid cyclist. She rides trails and even bikes on her way to work.

“I love riding bikes. It's a wonderful way to empower myself to get where I need to go by the strength of my own body,” said Sparks. 

With all that bike riding, she's developed a knack for fixing them.

“We always will go through the 'ABC' check. So that's the 'A' is air and your tires, the 'B' is breaks so you want your brakes to be nice and tight on the front and the back and then the 'C' is the crank system or the chain,” said Sparks. 

That is why she is also a part of a team from the nonprofit “Tri-State Trails,” a group that started doing the pop-up bike shops.

“We do this because bicycle repair can sometimes be a barrier to folks getting out and riding safely. It can be expensive. Not every city has a bike shop close by into the community,” said Sparks. 

The group travels to parks across the greater Cincinnati region, sets up shop and repairs your bike at no cost.

Since they’ve started doing the pop-ups in 2019, they’ve fixed as many as 30 bikes in a four-hour session.

“We get a ton of kids' bikes. I'd say that's maybe the majority of the fixes that we do. So, yeah, it's a lot of tire issues for the kids," said Sparks. 

She says grants and donations are helping to pay for the repairs from the pop-up project and they have another one in the works to teach kids bike safety

“We're installing a traffic garden which is going to use the concrete space that's all around here and it's going to be kind of like a little mini city. We're going to have lanes that look like car lanes out,” said Sparks. 

It's all an effort to get more people riding safely.

The next pop-up bike shop will be on July 15th in Dayton, Kentucky. Then they’re coming back across the river to Ohio later this summer. For more information, click here.