Quad Bikes is a non-profit bike shop housed in the basement of Cabot House, offering bike repair services to the Harvard and Cambridge community at affordable rates.
Whatever profit Quad Bikes makes goes into buying more equipment and paying its employees.
Basement bike workshop for free#
Because it leases its space for free from the university, the shop can keep prices low, and without owners or shareholders, it survives by breaking even each year. The shop offers bike repair services to the Harvard and greater Cambridge community at affordable rates. Quad Bikes may not actually be a communist utopia, but it is a non-profit and “informal co-op” devoted to spreading the joy of cycling. McMullen, a mechanic entering his fifth year at the shop, explains. Above the computer at the front desk, the Communist Manifesto is stapled to the wall, with a label below reading “Quad Bikes Training Manual.” They easily hold conversations with customers without stopping their work - it seems to come as second nature. Bike tires and tools hang from the walls and ceiling in an ordered chaos that only the mechanics can decipher. The mechanics appear to be in their late twenties, dressed in denim and flannels. The front desk is cluttered with business cards and stickers bearing the name of the shop: Quad Bikes. Down below, four mechanics are immersed in their work, tinkering with bike frames suspended in the air and tapping their feet to the music. A cacophony of AC/DC and clanging metal can be heard pouring out of the windows of Cabot House basement most afternoons.
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