The avid adult cyclists behind Digital Harbor High School’s bike club can talk at length about its high-minded goals of youth empowerment, skill development, etc.

But visit the club and its teenage members will remind you about the simple activity at the heart of it all.

“Are we going on a bike ride today?” one member asked his friends at a recent meeting.

It hardly mattered that the kids were hatless, gloveless and wearing hoodies and khakis on what was probably the coldest day of the year so far.

“It’s on the agenda,” one noted, “but it’s got a question mark.”

“If it’s on the agenda,” the other replied emphatically, “then it’s going to happen!”

The Club

The club is run by the Baltimore Bike Experience, a nonprofit that uses bikes as a medium to empower youth.

Bike Experience took over the hands-on club last year, say co-founders Andy Dahl and Nima Shahidi.

Dahl is a teacher by training, but working in community development and art now. Shahidi is a mechanic and community organizer. Both are avid cyclists and involved in Baltimore’s biking community.

They wrote grants to raise funds to outfit the club with tools last year and now run the  program as volunteers. The 30-member club includes Digital Harbor faculty members as well as students.

At Digital, the bike club has its own spacious workshop and a substantial  inventory of donated bikes – mountain bikes, hybrids, cruisers, and Frankenbike-looking mash-ups – in various stages of repair.

Shahidi and Dahl teach the students to make repairs and perform routine maintenance – hence the agenda. They teach not just how to fix bikes but how to work together cooperatively as a team.

A few of the bikes are sold to raise money for the club, but most are ultimately given to the student members. Every student who does ten weeks worth of work at bike club gets a refurbished bike and helmet.

A Medium for Working With Youth

The bike-ownership incentive is a big appeal for the students.

“That’s one of the best things about the club,” said Nicolas Wilkins, who lives in the Mondawmin area and likes to ride. “My own bike at home got stolen.”

Wilkins transferred to Digital recently and said he joined the club because he wanted to meet new people.

“I’ve been on three rides so far and learned how to fix wheels and tires,” he said.

Andre Hopkins joined bike club at the suggestion of his English teacher, Melissa McDonald.

“I’ve learned bike repair and maintenance basics and some leadership skills,” he said. “It’s a good environment, actually.”

McDonald said Hopkins is a motivated and successful student, but some members of the club have challenges. “The club benefits students because it provides them with a positive way to spend the afternoon around adults who care about them.”

“Many of our students struggle academically and behaviorally in school, but you might not know it from seeing them at the club,” McDonald, a bike club member herself, explained. “We have seen students change emotionally over time after being in the club for a few years.”

Jeremy Murphy, a Digital teacher and club member, says the club benefits faculty as well. “Bike club is way to connect with the kids if you can’t connect with them in the classroom.”

He says the school is evaluating the impact of the club, and whether its emphasis on problem solving, learning, and being part of a smaller school community will transfer to the classroom.

A Space for Success

Shahidi grew up with tools, and says fixing things is part of his identity. It’s that way for some of the bike club kids, too, even though most are not gearheads like him.

“Some kids just enjoy helping out in the shop. Frankly, not all kids enjoy school, or want to come to school, or have a lot of success here,” he said, “but they can have success at bike club.”

Other bike club members are more involved in the Baltimore biking community. Through the club, Hopkins got job at Race Pace bikes, a shop on Key Highway a few blocks from the school.

“I build bikes and help out customers,” he said.”I work one or two days a week.”

Hopkins rides his mountain bike to work from his home on the west side of town.

Shahidi says Baltimore Bike Experience hopes to create more work opportunities for youung cyclists. One idea is for Bike Experience to open a bike shop with a community, youth and art focus – in Southeast or West Baltimore – to be closest to Baltimore’s urban youth biking communities.

Biking is a Connector

As for Digital’s club, Dahl said they are trying to raise money for longer rides and bike trips outside of the city.

“That’s what the students want,” he said. “We asked them.”

Bike Experience is also planning an event where the Digital students and South Baltimore neighbors can get to know each other better. “Digital Harbor students have had some issues in the Federal Hill community. There have been some incidents,” Dahl says.

He was referring to crime, a recent student-on-student assault on the Inner Harbor Promenade, littering, and fights, to name a few that have made the news.

“We’ve been talking with the mayor’s office about ways to connect the two communities, to improve relationships,” Dahl said.

“A bike party might just be the way to do that.”

Never Too Cold for a Ride

The club tries to go on a ride every week.

Last week, while some of the kids begged off, a handful of diehards, including Shahidi, Dahl and Murphy, wrapped up and headed off to the school’s parking lot.

They were headed to Fort McHenry and back, a couple of miles. The wind chill was not a concern. “Yeah, we ride in all kinds of weather,” Hopkins said with a touch of pride.

Dahl put it this way as the cyclists slowly pedaled out, one behind the other: “For lot of the kids in the club – no matter what the weather or where we go – the rides are their favorite part.”