Changing Gears Community Bike Shop - Grand Re-Opening Celebration (formerly Cycles of Change APC)

Changing Gears Community Bike Shop – formerly Cycles of Change APC – is celebrating its new name and its new fiscal sponsor with a grand reopening celebration on Friday, October 15, 2010, from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. at 650 West Ranger Avenue at Alameda Point.

Everyone is invited to this community celebration that will include community bike races, bike repair and maintenance clinics, activities for children, video recordings, a potluck, and a raffle, at 650 West Ranger Avenue, #C-2, at Alameda Point on the former naval air station. Changing Gears Community Bike Shop is celebrating its new nonprofit sponsor, the Earth Island Institute. "We want everyone to come on out and party with us, " says shop Manager Barry Luck.

Since it opened in 2006 the non-profit bike shop has refurbished over 1000 bikes and diverted tons of waste from the landfill in the process. Cycles of Change APC - now Changing Gears Community Bike Shop - also provided volunteer and earn-a-bike opportunities for children and adults from throughout the Bay Area, led bicycle field trips for more than 100 Alameda Point Collaborative youth, and transformed its warehouse space into a thriving community center. Susan Gaydos, who once worked in a Ford plant, likes being a regular volunteer. "It's technical, environmental, communal, and empowering for the people working there, People are learning and expanding their awareness. It feels like good work. It feels like home."

The Earth Island Institute, based in Berkeley, fiscally sponsors over 40 environmental projects around the world, and is a non-profit, public interest, membership organization that supports people who are creating solutions to protect our shared planet. Changing Gears is the only bike shop affiliated with Earth Island Institute.

"Even though the shop has a new name and a new fiscal sponsor we will continue to serve both the greater community and the youth and adults at the Alameda Point Collaborative," said Evan Lovett-Harris, Changing Gears' Director of Community Outreach. "All of us deeply appreciate the support from everyone in the community who bought and donated bikes, volunteered their time, or contributed in other ways to us when we were Cycles of Change," he added.

(Info: barry@changinggearsbikes.org; 510-995-1478;  www.changinggearsbikes.org )