Cycling is considered one of the most efficient ways to travel due to its small carbon footprint. Many people are happy to ride a bike in their everyday life. However, better infrastructure (基本设施) and a cultural shift are needed to ensure that more people will ride a bike. Bike kitchens are part of a worldwide movement that can help with such a challenge.
In bike kitchens, tools, used parts, and repair assistance are provided to their members. They donate bikes and have become spaces for social exchange. They also make efforts to improve basic infrastructure, which plays a key role in ensuring the safety and comfort of cyclists in areas such as the development of bike lanes and bike parking. But that alone is not enough. Building a cycling culture that is socially accepted to most, means having significant amounts of people developing skills of riding bikes.
Cycling has various benefits
like promoting physical and mental health. More importantly, the infrastructure needed for bikes doesn't require a huge budget. Besides, bicycles are the most practical and sustainable means of travel for short and medium distance, and also for recreation and sport. Therefore, a cycling culture appears urgent and significant. For individuals in many developed countries, transport can be the largest part of their carbon footprint. Transport accounts for about one-fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. For short or medium distances, bikes are one of the lowest-carbon ways to travel. Even more shockingly, using a bike instead of a car for short trips would reduce a person's travel emissions by 75 percent.
Bike kitchens in particular, extend the lifespan of bikes and their parts. They help build a community economy that prevents waste generation, since most parts are secondhand, fixed, or reused. Either through the supply of tools, parts, workshops, fixing sessions, or bikes for free, bike kitchens encourage a more sustainable way of traveling that makes cities friendlier, while strengthening community values.
