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Bike Pirates

  • Currently 2.50/5

Rating: 2.5/5 (12 votes)

Posted by Staff / Reviewed on April 25, 2011

Bike PiratesBike Pirates is a Bloordale bike co-op where volunteers fill the workstations servicing rides. This 4 ½-year old non-profit collective has ambitions beyond bike repair, with a garden and kitchen to help feed their community, and workshops offsite for outreach. The co-op is always looking for volunteers with administratvie and office skills, just in case you're doubtful about your skills with a spanner.

Discussion

8 Comments

Henry / April 26, 2011 at 11:07 pm
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Love this place!
Didi / April 27, 2011 at 04:03 pm
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I walked into Bike Pirates having never fixed a thing on my bike, and one of the volunteers taught me how to replace my worn out brakes, grease my chain, change my foot pedals. He then checked the frame for fit and identified that the stem was too short, which was causing me wrist pain. Parts and a donation cost me $25. Great service and a great deal.
bob / May 1, 2011 at 10:10 pm
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you now what makes a good bike repair shop one where they don't make you feel stupid for not knowing what's going on with your bike.

you know what makes an great bike repair shop one where they'll actually explain it to you.

you know what makes and amazing shop, Bike Pirates, where they'll do all the above and teach you ow to fix it!
Ashley / July 7, 2011 at 04:10 pm
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I was really looking forward to my visit to this shop after reading all the great reviews. Unfortunately, I didn't get the great service/learning I had hoped for. My tech made numerous comments about my "department store bike", fixed everything himself (without showing me despite my asking), and was very short with me about the whole thing.
Of course, I still made a generous donation, but I don't think I'll be going back to this shop again. Very disappointing.
Andrew / August 3, 2011 at 05:00 pm
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Is it just me or is the website not listed here?
geoff / March 8, 2012 at 11:16 am
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Bikepirates.com
d / April 12, 2012 at 10:17 am
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is there another one similar to bike pirates? this place is a bit hectic, no chance to learn anything, snippy folk not really confident they know what they're doing, takes a very long time to get attention. ??the premise is ideal for someone like me who works on the bike year round, who has an ancient 'hard to find' bike that i won't give up for newer model. am looking for place where i belong not in this elitist chaos. thanx
Rich replying to a comment from d / April 29, 2012 at 03:15 pm
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d, there's Bikesauce in the east end, which I haven't checked out but which gives me the impression of being a bit less, uh, hardcore than Pirates can get. There's also CBN down on Queen West but I don't know anything about them other than that they have a DIY repair thingy; for some reason they never come up when people talk about Pirates and the Sauce.

Pirates is hectic, that's for sure. Both overwhelmed and overwhelming on a busy day, and I get the impression that there's a bit of burnout in some of the old hands there. (On the other hand on a quiet day it's an awesome place with some great people.)

That said, volunteers not confident in everything they're doing is something you'll find at any DIY repair place (but not the attitude) -- one of the perks of volunteering is learning bike repair, so there's always people who know some things but not all. Sometimes it's necessary to go "Hey, are you sure about this, let's double-check with someone else..."

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