Spring 2011 Retail Shop Overhaul!!!!

For those of you that don’t know, the Hub of Detroit emerged as a reorganization of Back Alley Bikes in 2008. At that time we opened our retail shop to fund all our other programming. Well fast forward to 2011 and our open-year-round bike shop is ready for its fourth year of existence with some amazing upgrades. You heard us, we got our stuff together. We aren’t just a rag tag collective, we’ve got a new sleek and organized way of doing things!

Everything is Blue: About a month ago or so a group of us got together and painted our retail shop. We covered up the grease marks and holes in the wall to make a better looking environment for you to bring your bike into. We also rebuilt our counters, painted them and reorganized our shop area. It is a continual process but if you haven’t been in the shop in a while, it is worth it to come in and see the space transformed!

We now accept credit cards: Brand new this month we can now accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover credit card payments at the shop. So when you need a new lock, new bike or to pay for a repair we can swipe your plastic as payment! Before you tell us that we sold out, let us tell you that we found a non-profit merchant account (the people that process the payments). So even though we are still making small payments to the huge credit card companies, the group the processes the payment is a small non-profit and not a global mega-bank.

We are divesting from Chase Bank: Speaking of global mega-banks, we are changing the way we bank. In a United States of America where bank bailouts are handed out and not paid back while folks in our city are losing homes, we can’t afford to be a community minded non-profit while banking with Chase Bank. So even though we have in the past, this month we will stop banking with Chase Bank and will be switching over to a Michigan based credit union.