Bikestock: self-service bike repair

The sharing economy is on two wheels and rolling.

A new venture aimed at making it possible for cyclists to make basic fixes on their bikes, 24/7. Bikestock launched with a party in Bushwick last November. The core of the company is increasing access to self-service bike repair. They do this in part with bike repair vending machines. They only show one, now, in Bushwick, on their map (outside Brooklyn’s Natural, 49 Bogart St).

The vending machines also have free to use tools on site, secured with ropes and free air all the time. This reporter remembers a time when a free air pump was easy to find. It’s nice to see them back.

Their other venture aims to get basic bike repair tools into local storefronts, with a bike repair kit, in which shopowners can sell things like tubes and patch kits, and lend out tools like chainbreakers and wrenches.

BikeStock isn’t Brooklyn’s only bike service vending machine and they were not the first to come up with the concept. The founders hope that its combination of machines-with-bike-mounts and in-store bike repair kits will give it a robust network across New York, according to CNet.

Some ventures in the sharing economy space aren’t so much sharing as more distributed selling, but there are real aspects of sharing to this story, in the form of sharing tools, pumps and really nice bike repair stands (which make making a fix much, much easier).

See video from the Bikestock launch party here: