The First Buddy Bike® Made in USA - Buddy Bike Sport USA
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Bikes For Every Body will unveil the first Buddy Bike® Made in USA at The Philly Bike Expo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 29-30, 2022. The production of Buddy Bike Sport USA is a collaboration between Shelley L. Patterson, the Owner and Founder of Bikes For Every Body LLC in North Miami Beach, Florida and Stephen Bilenky of Bilenky Cycle Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
BIKES FOR EVERY BODY
bikesforeverybody.com
Bikes For Every Body is the home of The Buddy Bike®! We manufacture and sell The Buddy Bike worldwide and offer sales of other bicycles that promote inclusion while serving as a resource to match riders of all abilities with the bikes that serve their needs. We offer a mobile service of weekly adaptive bicycle rentals in South Florida.
THE BUDDY BIKE®
buddybike.com
The Buddy Bike® is the alternative tandem bicycle with rear seat steering for riders with special needs providing adaptive and therapeutic cycling for riders with autism, down syndrome, sight impairment, balance issues, low muscle tone and other disabilities that would prevent them from riding a bike safely on their own.
The Buddy Bike was invented as The Love Bike in the 1990s by Bob Gardner in Willits, California. He began production overseas which continued when Barry Nelson purchased the inventory and began selling the bikes as The Buddy Bike® in 2005. Shelley Patterson managed the Buddy Bike business until its closing at the end of 2020 when she founded Bikes For Every Body LLC to take over the production and distribution of The Buddy Bike.
Supply chain issues, bicycle production backlogs which prevented Shelley from being able to place new orders, and a world recovering from the Coronavirus pandemic made her explore options for building smaller numbers of bikes in the USA. Her research for American tandem bicycle frame builders eventually led her to Stephen Bilenky of Bilenky Cycle Works who came highly recommended by other cycling industry professionals.
Shelley saw the solution in producing smaller numbers of custom, hand-built Buddy Bikes in America. She began researching American tandem bicycle frame builders and was eventually led to Stephen Bilenky of Bilenky Cycle Works who came highly recommended by other cycling industry professionals.
BILENKY CYCLE WORKS
bilenky.com
Stephen Bilenky is the Owner, Founder, and Designer at Bilenky Cycle Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He and his crew have built hundreds of bikes since the company was founded in 1983. Stephen Bilenky doesn’t just build bikes, he takes frame building as an art. He says, “I’m looking for a certain sense of flowing, quality, joinery of metal. It becomes art, craftsmanship.” Bilenky is most recently known for building the UK Friendship Bike which was gifted by President Joe Biden to then Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021.
Shelley is honored that such a well-known frame builder in the cycling industry as Stephen Bilenky would take on a project like The Buddy Bike. She envisions this American-made version of The Buddy Bike as an opportunity to provide special needs families with more than the typical therapeutic device. The new Buddy Bike Sport USA would be a piece of art and craftmanship that families could ride together with joy and pride.
BUDDY BIKE SPORT USA
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Buddy Bike Sport USA is a custom, hand-built, American-made bicycle designed by Bikes For Every Body LLC. It features The Buddy Bike American-built steel frame by Bilenky Cycle Works, Buddy Bike Classic dual handlebar set up on the same stem, American-made cranksets by da Vinci Designs with an adjustable crankset option for smaller front seat riders, and the novice-friendly manual Enviolo Trekking CVP drivetrain for seamless shifting. Specifications are subject to changes as Buddy Bike Sport USA is still in the development stage.
Shelley’s favorite new feature are the American-made cranksets provided by da Vinci Designs. An optional adjustable crankset allows three pedal settings at 130/150/170 mm for smaller riders on the front seat. Da Vinci Designs is known in the cycling industry for quality, American-made cranksets and made a crankset and drivetrain on a bicycle ridden by Denise Mueller-Korenek which crushed the motor-paced bicycle land speed world record in 2018 by traveling at 183.93 mph. Shelley says “I don’t think our riders will be setting any land speed records since the Buddy Bike is a cruiser-type bicycle, but it sure is cool to be able to tell kids their bikes includes parts made by the same people who help set world records!”
Bikes For Every Body will produce a small number of Buddy Bike Sport USA models for Summer 2023. These limited bikes will be reserved by pre-order with deposits and will go into production in small runs. To raise funds to speed up production, Shelley created a Buddy Bike crowdfunding page on Kiva.org and within 18 days successfully raised $7,000 toward frame production. Kiva allows lenders to fund small businesses with no-interest loans with as little as $25.
PHILLY BIKE EXPO
phillybikeexpo.com
The Buddy Bike Sport USA prototype will be unveiled at the Philly Bike Expo at the Bilenky Cycle Works booth. Stephen Bilenky founded the Philadelphia Bike Expo in 2010 as a way to promote cycling culture. It is now one of the largest cycling trade shows in the US. Bina Bilenky runs the annual weekend-long event featuring exhibitors, seminars, presentations and events representing the spectrum of cycling.
Philly Bike Expo – OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Philadelphia Convention Center
Hall E at Cherry Street & N Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
October 29, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
October 30, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM