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Jammie Taylor of Portland, Ore., rides the Bangtail Divide trail near Bozeman on June 29, 2009. The Gallatin Valley Bicycle Club is holding its annual Bike Swap this weekend at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds. Photo by Ben Pierce.

The Gallatin Valley Bicycle Club got its start way back in 1978. A group of local cyclists including Bill Grey, Tim Swanson and Christie Johnson founded the club in Bozeman to promote cycling in the community.

More than three decades later that mission has not changed.

This weekend the GVBC will host its annual Bike Swap at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds. The Bike Swap offers a chance to sell or shop for a wide variety of bicycles — everything from BMX to road bikes, even the occasional unicycle. And a portion of the proceeds from sales at the Bike Swap are turned around by the GVBC to support cycling-related events and organizations in the community.

“That might be Gallatin Valley Land Trust, as they are creating and maintaining many of the trails we use, or the Bozeman Area Bike Advisory Board, which organizes Bike to Work Week,” said GVBC advocacy director Molly Pickall. “The Bike Swap is our only fundraiser, though we raise some money through membership fees. For our philanthropy, the Bike Swap is our biggest source of money.”

Penelope Pierce, executive director of GVLT said contributions from groups like GVBC are important.

“Just the fact that they are willing to do these things for us shows that we work in partnership,” Pierce said on Wednesday. “All donations are important, but groups like GVBC or the Big Sky Wind Drinkers that use our trails, it is really wonderful to see.”

The process of selling a bike at the Bike Swap couldn’t be simpler. The GVBC asks sellers to bring their bicycles, parts and accessories to the Gallatin County Fairgrounds on Friday between 4 p.m.-7 p.m. GVBC charges a $1 consignment fee per item. Sellers set their own prices and if their item sells during the sale on Saturday between 8 a.m.-1 p.m., GVBC collects a 15 percent commission. Unsold items can be picked up after 1 p.m. with unclaimed items donated to the Bozeman Bike Kitchen.

Pat Hatfield, co-director of the Bike Swap, said the sale has come a long way since its infancy. Hatfield said the first Bike Swap was a pretty low-key event held in the early 1980s. At that time the swap attracted just a few members of the local cycling community and generated limited revenue.

Hatfield said the Bike Swap remained a small affair until 2008 when Team Muleterro, a local cycling group, created an advertising campaign to promote the event. The ads piqued interest in the community and the number of bikes at the swap jumped.

“We tapped into people looking for a new bike for their kids and people with old bikes they wanted to get rid of,” Hatfield said on Monday. “In 2008, we literally had people crawling all over the place. We were not prepared for it.”

The growing success of the Bike Swap has correlated to increased philanthropic donations made by GVBC. Hatfield said revenue from the Bike Swap has increased four fold since 2007 and now amount to several thousand dollars.

In addition to supporting GVLT and the Bozeman Area Bike Advisory Board, GVBC has used funds generated from the Bike Swap to support Montana Special Olympics, Eagle Mount, The Bike Kitchen and the Helmets for Kids program through Bozeman public schools.

“One of the cool things about the bike club is that the money we make off the swap gets used to support cycling in the community,” said Amy Chiuchiolo, GVBC president.

In addition to raising funds to support the local cycling community, the Bike Swap will this year feature information tables with representative from Gallatin Valley BMX, Montana Mountain Bike Alliance and the GAS/Intrinsic Cycling Team, among others.

Pickall said the information tables will help spread the word about the benefits of cycling.

“Personally, why I moved to Bozeman and why I stay here is because of our quality community opportunities,” she said. “We should be able to ride a bike from the front door to the mountains. Every kid should be able to safely ride their bike to school. Bozeman is a really good community for those types of things.”

Hatfield said the growth of the Bike Swap has paralleled the increased interest in cycling across the Gallatin Valley.

And he expects this year’s swap to build upon that success.

“We want to develop a community memory, the third Saturday in April,” Hatfield said. “The Bike Swap is a great community service.”

Related posts:

1. Johnson stepping down as executive director of Gallatin Valley Land Trust
2. Gallatin Wildlife Association to hold clean-up along Gallatin River on Monday
3. Gallatin Valley Land Trust announces new executive director Penelope Pierce
4. Gallatin Valley Land Trust seeking volunteers for trail work on June 5
5. Rock Hoppers Mountain Biking Club to start riding on July 15

Tags: Gallatin Valley Bike Club, Gallatin Valley Land Trust

This entry was posted by Ben Pierce on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 12:01 am and is filed under Bozeman, Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.