About Susitna Bicycle Institute
Welcome to the Susitna Bicycle Institute!
It’s been a rough few years for everyone, so here’s an introduction for those of you new to the organization, and an update for those of you who have been with us since the start.
The Susitna Bicycle Institute was founded by Scott Menzies in February 2016. Scott had extensive experience working at shops, bike collectives, and other bike schools across the country, and saw potential in Alaska for a new kind of all-encompassing bicycle institute. With the unique challenges, Scott envisioned a non-profit bike mechanics school that would provide access to mechanic knowledge and agency across the state. Using his own money and effort, Scott outfitted his 750 sq ft. shop in Sand Lake with workstands, tools, parts, and framebuilding equipment. He began teaching one-on-one classes to cyclists who wanted to be able to understand how their bikes work, and how to fix them.
Charlie Lowell joined SBI in 2017. Charlie and Scott met while working together at Speedway Cycles, where a powerful friendship was formed. Disillusioned with political science and campaign work, Charlie decided their efforts would be better spent in their home state to directly enable communities to have broader access to bicycles. Charlie and Scott began working together to teach classes to cyclists of all ages, provide neutral support for races, host events, and develop SBI’s flagship Remote Outreach Program.
After the first year, the program areas for SBI began to define themselves as three distinct efforts: The Remote Outreach Program, which functions to bring tools and education to Alaskan communities with an abundance of bikes and no bike shop; Individual and community education, which offers mechanics classes on a sliding scale to all interested parties and organizations; and a full-service bike shop, which functions as a major source of funding, and will serve as an internship training program available to all SBI students.
2018 and 2019 were SBI’s most productive years. Scott and Charlie taught classes to hundreds of cyclists aged 8-80, brought full tool kits and community classes to communities across the state, and hosted seminars, events, and campouts.
SBI’s first shop in Sand Lake saw many students, a snowy pumptrack, and the production of several handbuilt frames. In early 2019, SBI moved to the location on Kincaid Road, which brought many new students, and expanded our visibility to the Anchorage cycling community. This space included a dedicated machine shop, where Charlie and Scott were able to hone their framebuilding abilities, and offer frame repair as a shop service. Here they made many friends and connections, and began to plan for the long-term.
As it did for everyone, the COVID-19 pandemic brought SBI’s programming to a screeching halt. Travel and in-person classes could no longer happen, but SBI had to stay open. Previously, repair services accounted for a small amount of SBI’s schedule and funding, Scott and Charlie had no other choice but to become a full time service shop. With demand for bike service skyrocketing in 2020, they were able to keep SBI open through the incredible support of the bike community in Anchorage.
The winter of 2020/21 brought many changes to SBI. Scott had to return to his hometown of Austin, TX, handing the reins of the Bike School to Charlie. At the end of 2020, the landlord had to sell the property, and SBI moved to its last residential home in Airport Heights. Due to size and staffing restraints, operations remain restricted to service only. But fret not, SBI is here to stay. Charlie has been working tirelessly to grow the Susitna Bicycle Institute into the full-fledged bicycle nonprofit headquarters that Alaska deserves. While it took most of 2021 for SBI to begin to build back, Charlie is in the process of finding a permanent commercial home, where classes will resume, and operations will begin to get back to normal.
Thank you to all of you who have brought your bike in for service, ordered parts, referred friends, and shown your support in a multitude of ways. SBI would not still be standing if it wasn’t for the incredible community of cyclists that share our dream.
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