Turning Wheels for Kids–Big Bike Build

Registration is closed. The event is full.

Turning Wheels for Kids (TWFK) is an organization that provides bikes and helmets to kids to prevent childhood obesity and support low-income families. It’s an all-volunteer organization working in partnership with community groups such as the Valley Medical Center Foundation and the Santa Clara Fire Department, as well as corporate sponsors such as Specialized Bicycles, Raleigh America and the San Francisco 49ers.

Bikes are one of the Christmas gifts most requested by kids. Each year on a Saturday morning early in December TWFK hold their Big Bike Build (BBB) at the San Jose Convention Center, where hundreds of volunteers from many different clubs and companies come together to assemble a few thousand bikes to be given away to deserving kids. 

Most team members will assemble bikes, from coaster-brake kids' bikes to mountain bikes and full road bikes. A few will be needed as first-line quality inspectors to review the assembled bikes before they go to the central collection/final QA station. Volunteers can also help with onsite check-in of registrants, clearing bike cartons and trash from the work areas to recycling bins, and/or unloading unassembled boxed bikes and loading assembled bikes into trucks.

You need not have experience assembling or maintaining bikes to put together bikes at this event. If you know how to use a hex/allen key, a wrench, a screwdriver and a bike pump, you have the necessary skills. Assemblers will need to bring basic tools such as hex keys/allen wrenches, open-end wrenches, screwdrivers, pedal wrenches and floor pumps. Bike workstands and/or knee pads are also useful to have. TWFK provides breakfast, lunch and T-shirts, as well as validated parking (though they strongly encourage carpooling as parking spaces are limited).

Please register here so the TWFK organizers will know how large a work area to assign to our team. Starting Saturday November 7, each member of our team will need to register at the TWFK–BBB event site, also for free. You may then optionally choose to donate to TWFK. On-site at the BBB there will also be raffles you can choose to take part in.