Calgary youth bike trade-up helps families deal with affordability and high cost of living

A bicycle trade-up event is helping parents get their kids’ refurbished bikes after they’ve outgrown their old ones.

The Calgary non-profit group Youth en Route hosted a free Kids Bike Trade-Up event on Saturday.

It’s not only to help families whose kids have outgrown their bicycles, but the youth trade-up is also for those struggling with affordability and the high cost of living.

Families bring in their old bicycles and trade them in for a free refurbished bike donated to Youth en Route. Those old bikes are then refurbished and safety checked, and used for later trade-ups.

The Rathwell family took advantage of the initiative, telling CityNews the last few years have been tough on them financially.

“We’re just on the up of figuring things out and like finally kind of going, and just as it’s there, she says ‘I need a new bike,’ and she’s outgrown her old bike, and we’re like—trying to find even just a second-hand bike,” Lindsey Rathwell said.

“It’s really hard because you have to tune it up, you have to do all that, and here everything is safe.”

Laura Shutiak, the executive director of Youth en Route, says the project was paid for by the City of Calgary through the Bike Trade Up program. She says their goal is to gather additional funding to be able to do this full-time.

“So that we don’t have to wait for an event, or we can go do a community association cleanup or an event at a community association, and just be able to do it there so that people don’t have to trek to find their little ones a bike,” she said.

The non-profit is planning to host another bike trade-up event in October, with some, like the Rathwell family, saying they’ll be attending again.

“I have a little guy who couldn’t get one today just because he’s still not quite there yet for a pedal bike, so we will be coming back when he’s ready,” Rathwell said.

Information on upcoming trade-ups can be found on the event website.