Road Warriors!

the Boise Bicycle Project

One of my good friends from Norco started this project with his friend. It's called the Boise Bicycle Project. They take donated bikes, fix them up and sell them. All the while- they are finding homes and donating children's bikes to children who otherwise wouldn't have bikes.
Not knowing anything about the project I happened to talk to Jarrod (my friend) about needing to find a place to get Paxton and Gauge bikes. I didn't want to get them Walmart bikes but I wanted to get them something good without the cost. He proudly told me about this project that he has and asked us to come by.
When I told Paxton that we were going to be getting a bike for him he couldn't wait! He has been working so hard in the yard picking up dog poop, weeding and helping Dad mow to earn money for a bike. We have been giving him dollars for the work and he has been saving them every day for some time now.
Jarrod was proud to tell me that kids didn't buy bikes at the Boise Project but Pax would be donated one. I told him that Paxton saved his money and we were teaching him about hard work and earning something for himself, so we decided to compromise and he would let Paxton donate his own money to the cause.
When we got to downtown Boise we found the place and inside there were hundreds and hundreds of bikes...
What you do is pick one and they fix it up for the kid. They checked brakes, put training wheels on, cleaned it, oiled it, fixed the tires, put on new grips and wa la!

It even came with a kick stand!

When Paxton first got there he told me he wanted a flash bike. I was a little disappointed that he would ask for such a thing because I didn't think that I had raised my child to want expensive things like that. So we went through the bikes and Ryan found two total road warriors. Jarrod was even embarrassed that out of all of the bikes we had chosen such ugly bikes. They were good strong frames though and after a couple of hours of putting them together, they were perfect!

This is Gauge giving me a hard time! He gets it from his Dad!

After they were all fixed up the volunteers at the shop found the boys helmets and gave them little gift bags with books about bikes and pamphlets about bike safety.

Now that Paxton had a helmet, he was sold!

So we cracked open the piggy bank and we "donated" or bought both bikes. Paxton was really proud to pay for his bike himself. It is the first thing that he saved his money for and was able to pay for by himself. Everyone at the shop was really impressed that Paxton was paying for his own bike.

Now that we are home we realize that Gauge isn't quite ready for his bike and after a little more work on raising the seat and some WD40 from Dad, Paxton is up and moving!

He goes out to practice almost every day and Ryan takes the little Honda with Gauge and they all ride together

I hope this is one of those things that Paxton remembers.

At least he will remember the rides with his Dad!