Noah Staub has been hanging around RAD Springfield Community Bike Shop since 2020 and has recently volunteered to step into the role of RAD Coordinator. You can visit RAD Springfield on Monday afternoons from 2-6 pm.

So tell us about when you first came to Make-It Springfield, who was here and what was going on. What made you stick around? 

So I first came in the summer of 2020. I came because I just heard about it through the grapevine. I was riding bikes and was interested in doing bike mechanics and had been doing bike mechanics my whole life. I’ve had to fix my own bike and also everybody else’s bike around me. 

When I came in 2020, Max was here and he was 18 at the time. Sheldon was here. We were all learning at the old Worthington Street location, a much smaller space, but people would come in and fix their bikes.

What do you think Make-It Springfield means to the community and maybe from your angle of being part of the bike shop? What does it mean as a resource to people? 

It means a whole lot and it’s a great resource. It’s a resource that can continue to expand. It’s basically a community run, donation run bike shop, you know. We give a lot of bikes to refugees, we give repairs and bikes to people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to get the necessary bike work done, it’s a really wonderful thing and it’s rare. I mean, it’s all about community and it’s all about learning how to do it and doing it cheaply, and all that good stuff. 

Do you mean for you learning how to do the bike repair? or for visitors learning how to do it?

I mean for visitors to have access to the bikes that we are able to refurbish with our experience. And for people that have been doing it and want to volunteer their time, being able to facilitate taking care of people and teaching others how to do it.

So have you gotten into showing other people how to fix bikes? 

RAD used to run summer programs and I remember in 2020, there were a bunch of kids that would come in and they would have bikes to fix and they could learn and they would work with us. Right now we don’t do that as much because we have large amount of bikes that currently need to be fixed up and shipped out for programs. So, for now, we are just doing the work ourselves, and then we meet people who come in to choose a bike and take it.

What kind of workload does RAD have right now? 

For example, in December, we had a shipment of 30 kids bikes to refurbish for the refugee kids at Jewish Family Services.  

Like for the holidays? And where where did that donation come from?

The donations, the bikes themselves, they generally just come from people who hear about us and have leftover bikes, or bikes that their kids have outgrown, and they want to donate them to us.

What’s your plan for the future here? You’re gonna be hanging out with us a little bit more as the new RAD Coordinator. 

Absolutely, yeah. I think we want to continue to do what we’re doing but we also want to promote bike culture. I believe in the value of riding bicycles and definitely the value of what we do here, but the world we live in values cars. I think of a cultural trend towards bicycles is something I would love to be a part of, and being part of this and doing whatever I can to facilitate people riding bikes and using that especially as a way to transport around short distances or to structure their lives a little bit differently…I think that’s a wonderful thing. It’s something that I wanna be a part of. 

Sounds good. And tell me about you, like, where do you live and what else do you like to do? 

I’m a long distance rider. I have done a bunch of long distance rides. My longest ride was from Keen, NH, about 90 miles or so. I grew up on Marlborough Street in Springfield. My family never had a car just because of a different lifestyle. So I started riding a bike at 6 years old and just rode around the city and would ride up to my grandfather’s house in Holyoke, stuff like that. Now, I ride around Springfield and kids yell to me “Hey, wheelie this and wheelie that,” but I don’t not know how! It’s so sad. I don’t know how to wheelie but maybe I’ll learn that some day.

I’m also a musician, and an athlete. I play guitar, I sing and I have a band. 

Where can we see your band?

So we’re playing next week at McCarthy’s Tavern in Springfield. We’re called the Marlborough Street Band. Come check us out! 

All right, anything else you want people to know about you? 

Yeah, come down and check out RAD Springfield for yourself. We have bikes, we have cool people…Make-It Springfield is a great space for other stuff as well.

All right Noah! Thanks so much for your time and we’ll see you in the bike shop!