Kiwanis bike auction a ‘win-win’ for community

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This article was published 29/07/2024 (611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Wheat City’s Brad Cormack and his two sons browsed the bicycle aisles looking for a bargain during the summer edition of the Kiwanis Club of Brandon’s bike auction at the Keystone Centre on Saturday.

“Bikes get small and there will come a time when we’re going to have to upgrade their size,” Cormack said as he nodded to his boys Jesse and Keenan. “So, we’re looking around to see if there’s anything suitable.”

With more than 100 bikes on display, Barb Simon tested a few for handlebar height, “I’d like one with shocks too, and a better seat. I do have an older bike, I think it’s an original from Canadian Tire and it’s done me well,” Simon said as she laughed, “But I’ve actually wanted to come to this auction for a while, so my husband and I just finally came.”

The bike auction is held twice a year, in the spring and summer, said the Kiwanis Club’s Keith Scott who is the organization’s bike chairperson.

“If you’re looking for a bike and you want to get something that could be half price or less than what you will pay in a store, this is a great deal for everybody,” Scott said as he pointed to a Hyper Viking trail bike with a price tag of $448. “Here, you could probably pick up a bike like this for $150.”

Some bicycles are donated to the Kiwanis Club, but most of the orphaned bikes are found by Brandon Police Service members and City bylaw officers, said Scott.

Police collect the bikes throughout the year, and if they are unclaimed by their former owners, they are turned over to the Kiwanis Club.

“The police bring them to our storage facility,” Scott said. “We’re regulated, so we have to store them for 30 days before we can do anything with them. After that — as part of our contract with the police, they become our property. And on the day of the auction, our members shine them up to get them ready.”

The Kiwanis Club has been hosting the bike auction for “at least” 20 years. And while Scott’s involvement with the club has only been for the last seven years, he said the number of lost and stolen bikes seem to go up every year.

“We’re handling anywhere from 220 to 230 bikes a year, so it’s relatively constant, and that is why we do a spring and summer sale,” Scott said.

If someone attends an auction and points to a bike they say once belonged to them but was stolen, there is a process in place. A bylaw officer on site will ask for proof of ownership, including a serial number or photo. Claims are accepted until 10 p.m. on the day of the sale.

All bike owners in Brandon are encouraged to register with 529 Garage. It’s a database that tracks bicycle ownership and theft and is used by numerous police agencies, including the Brandon Police Service.

With 529 Garage, users download an application, or app, get a serial number tag for their bike and create a bike profile that gets uploaded to the whole app database.

If a bike is stolen, the user hits the stolen bike alert button and other app users within several kilometres get an alert on their phones. The app tracks bicycles that are reported stolen, allowing for police to return them to their owners.

Kiwanis’s Scott said while it’s an unfortunate “fact of life that bikes are stolen,” he sees the auction “as a way to help the police and the community.” Funds raised through the auction go to community projects, such as the pavilion that was set up in Rideau Park that provides people a pleasant spot to sit.

“This is one of the bigger fundraisers we have, we generally raise somewhere between $10,000 and $12,000 a year from our auctions,” said Scott.

“So, it’s a win-win all the way around because we plow all the money that we raise out of this back into the community,” said Scott. “We keep it local, it doesn’t go international, even though Kiwanis is an international organization.”

“It gets the bikes out of the system and gets the money back into the community.”

Holding his auction tag, Dorian Parker gets in real close to each bike as he looks for his perfect ride, “I have my eye on one or two for trails. So, I need suspension, nice tires, and disc brakes,” he said.

His grandmother Maggie Nickel said she told her grandson about the auction.

“I had heard about it, and saw the posting on Facebook, so I told him there were bargains to be had. I know my grandson,” she said as she laughed.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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