Andy Dyson

Neighborhood Bike Works

by Brian Howard

Michael T. Regan

"The mission of Neighborhood Bike Works," Andy Dyson finally says, "is to increase opportunities for youth through bicycling."

About an hour and a half into our interview over burritos at Qdoba, down the street from St. Mary's Church — an unaffiliated island in the middle of Penn's campus whose basement serves as NBW's headquarters — Dyson, the executive director of the secular West Philadelphia nonprofit, finally gives me the nutshell of what his organization does.

He says it in that shrugging way that suggests, "Of course it's not that simple, but I can't have an hour and a half chat with every bloke who wants to know what we're about."

In some ways, it is that simple.

In a world where it seems things are going more to shit each passing day, it can be difficult for the concerned to focus their energies. Do you work against climate change or for social justice? For race relations or against oil dependency? Toward public health and safety or against Third World exploitation?

As Dyson, 47, a Brit-born cycle junkie who fell in with the "white, West Philadelphia radical scene" upon moving here in 1983 with his first wife, has figured out, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.

He's found that the NBW, an organization he's been involved with since it began in 1996 as a project of the Bicycle Coalition and directed since 2002, is something of an omnibus cause for fighting a whole bunch of society's ills all at once.

There are several components of NBW. There's the Earn a Bike program where kids learn bike repair, safety and handling, and in return for their time they get a bike to work on and maintain through and after graduation. There's a fitness program, summer day camp, safety checks, group rides, entrepreneur groups and a road riding club (whose Brandon Waite and Kevin Gorum just competed in Lancaster's Iodate Road Race). They do outreach in elementary and charter schools and have a second location at 60th and Vine streets. For adults, there's "bike church," a thrice-weekly repair co-op, as well as repair and urban biking classes.

But it's about more than the bikes, says Dyson. It's about equality. And it's about freedom.

"Someone who is in a neighborhood that is completely disenfranchised, having them be able to ride a bike and get around the city and not have to rely on SEPTA or use blood-tainted oil, while helping them avoid becoming overweight," says Dyson. "If they can get all the things they need while having a blast on a bike, it all seems to make perfect sense."

A sense of independence is just the first building block of the program. It's what brought their office manager, Jimmy Cuper, to the shop in 2003: "I just started hanging out with the idea of becoming more self-sufficient," Cuper says in the basement office whose exposed bricks and beams give it the feel of an underground bunker.

Dyson says there are no graduates of their programs — he estimates they've had about 1,500 over the last 11 years — that they don't see again. Many graduates, including Waite, Gorum and Vaughn Summers, have become active employees and volunteers.

Dyson isn't content, however, with NBW merely showing its students how to get out and around; he wants to show them what they'll be missing if they don't. Recent group rides have visited Mill Creek Farm and Spiral Q puppet theater. "I see it as an opportunity for people to get to know different kinds of art, sustainable business," says Dyson. "Everyone who works here sees it as having a social justice component."

For Dyson, who grew up riding the "hilly — by English standards" roads of Alwnwick (whose castle, he notes happily, is the original Hogwarts of the Harry Potter films), a bike is as much a means of interaction as of transportation. After working in several bike shops in Philly and with frame builder Stephen Bilenky, he jumped to NBW because he saw it as an "opportunity to connect myself with West Philadelphia."

It's what elevates Dyson from "guy whose program we like" to Favorite Philadelphian. He's a true believer in that very childhood notion that everything's at least a little bit better when you're tooling around on two wheels. A middle-aged white guy who's unabashed about telling anyone and everyone that they'd be happier, they'd know their neighbors better, and the world would be healthier, if they'd ride a bike. He's ever concerned. He's the kind of guy who says things like, "I wish I had more time to write letters to newspapers."

"I remember in 1992 or something, it was the night of a big boxing match — Holyfield vs. Tyson, maybe — riding through West Philly with my friends," recalls Dyson. "We were going down the street, 60th or so north of Market, and we see this group of kids on the corner who were outraged that there were a bunch of obviously naïve white people riding down their block. And they attacked us with a hockey stick and a trash can. After we disentangled ourselves, my friend was like, 'What are we going to do, now we can't ride our bikes there?' It never crossed my mind. I was like, 'Dude, I'm going to ride there more.'

"Now, whenever I see teenagers, if they say anything threatening to me, I stop and I talk to them. It's not badass in the least — it's simply a thing of knowing that these kids are just like I was as a kid. I give them a business card. I prefer being that person than one who insists on separating."