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Holy City Bicycle Co-op

Grassroots nonprofit brings cyclists together with midnight rides and workshops

It's Saturday night. A herd of 52 bicyclists departs from local watering hole The Recovery Room shortly past midnight. The group dashes across downtown Charleston on the hour-long Midnight Mystery Ride, led by the newly recognized state nonprofit organization Holy City Bicycle Co-operative.

The Holy City Bicycle Co-operative, commonly referred to as the Holy City Bike Co-op, is a local grassroots organization that provides assistance for local cyclists, including tools and workshops regarding maintenance, in addition to hosting fun, social events in which like-minded individuals can hang out and ride around.

One such event is the Midnight Mystery Ride, an event that takes place sporadically in which a group of cyclists get together and hit the streets for a midnight ride around the Holy City.

The event is led by members and always features a different route, hence the mystery behind it.

The last ride was June 27 and featured stops at the Old Exchange Building, the Pink House and the tall ships at the harbor, ending with drinks and snacks at Hampton Park.

The co-op was first created in the winter of 2007 by local bike enthusiasts Cedric Baele, Liz Vaughn and Luca Pellicoro as a response to an apparent lack of bicycle workshops and resources across the Lowcountry.

The organization, formerly known as Charleston Bicycle Co-operative, aimed to provide cyclists with tools and assistance, while also promoting local bike culture.

Baele, Vaughn and Pellicoro first pitched the idea of the co-op to Charleston cyclists at a March 2008 Critical Mass, a nationwide gathering in which cyclists take to the streets, obscuring traffic as a social protest. While Critical Mass was more of a political event, the co-op was formed as a simple way for local cyclists in the community to have fun and help each other out.

"We really don't want to be an advocating organization so much as a social and maintenance-driven organization," as co-organizer Dan Kelley says.

It was at that Critical Mass event that Kelley first took notice of the co-op. A native of Easley, he had recently re-located to Charleston in part because of its thriving bicycle scene.

"That was one of my job-hunt criteria; I wanted to be able to get to work on a bicycle," Kelley said.

Kelley immediately contacted the group and volunteered to help out with the organization. His first task was to operate the bike valet system, akin to a car valet, at the co-op's Fixed Up party, which raised $1,600 for the organization in April 2008 at Pantheon.

As word of mouth began to spread about this grassroots organization, the Charleston Bicycle Co-operative attracted more volunteers and elected to change its name to the current moniker.

The organization also saw a change in leadership shortly thereafter. Pellicoro moved to California, and Vaughn chose to pursue other projects in the Lowcountry. Baele eventually left as well, moving to Europe in February.

Kelley, Benjamin Rennison, J.J. Reaves,

Stephen Risse and Emily Brewer took the reigns. They opted to work together in a nonhierarchical fashion to further the goals of the organization.

One of their main focuses was to ensure that the co-op received state nonprofit status, which would grant the group a tax ID number so that they could get invoices, and would also allow donors to write checks directly to the organization, rather than having to write checks to individual group members.

The co-organizers began the nonprofit process in December 2008. Risse said that in order to complete the paperwork, the organization needed to find a clear direction that they wanted the co-op to move in.

"For us to figure out how exactly we wanted the co-op to function in Charleston was the largest hurdle we had to get over," Risse said. "There are a lot of different co-ops in a lot of different cities and they're run a lot of different ways."

One step to finding a clear direction was to secure a permanent shop space for the co-op. The group hosts clinics 3-5 p.m. the first Sunday of the month in Marion Square. The clinics aim to teach Lowcountry cyclists about bike maintenance, and give them an opportunity to use the group's tools to repair their bikes. Working in Marion Square only allots the group a limited amount of time to teach and help cyclists, so they decided that a warehouse space was necessary. Charleston Pedicab has offered the use of its Upper King Street space to set up a permanent shop, with set hours each week where cyclists can stop by and work on their bikes.

"Now that we've figured out what we wanted to be in the city, we've started moving in that direction. Getting the paperwork done was one step, getting our space from Pedicab was another," Risse said.

The group finally sent out the paperwork in early May and received notice of their state nonprofit status just three weeks later. They plan to file for federal status by the end of the summer.

On Sunday, the co-op hosts its response to the famed Tour de France: the Tour de Taco. Departing at 6:30 p.m. from Hampton Park, this ride will guide cyclists to several taco eateries in Charleston, including Santi's, Yo Burrito, Taco Boy and Juanita Greenberg's.

"It's another social event and an excuse to ride bicycles, and a way to show how prominent bicycle culture is in the downtown area," Rennison said.

Though there are no set plans at the moment, the group also plans to host another Midnight Mystery Ride.

For more information, visit www.holycitybikecoop.org.

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