Written by Isabella Taylor
On March 3rd, the NW Trail Sisters and River City Bicycles teamed up to host a women-led brake bleed clinic, and it was truly a night to be remembered. It’s been a while since River City has held tech clinics in-house, so Sarah and I were ready to scheme up a night centered around uplifting women in our local community, and fostering stoke around learning technical skills.
With 40 clinic attendees expected for the night, Sarah and I split up the teaching efforts into two groups: one crew upstairs learning the SRAM MTB bleed procedure and one crew downstairs learning the Shimano procedure. After a 40-minute session, each group switched gears to learn the other method. To keep the evening slightly more simple, we stuck with only SRAM and Shimano bleed procedures, otherwise, the clinic would have dragged on all night. But we felt it gave a general overview of mineral oil and DOT fluid systems overall, give or take a few manufacturer nuances.
As women in the service department, it’s our mission to show others how capable they are of doing things they might’ve written off or *gasp*…Been told they can’t! We wanted to connect everyone to this vision in a unique way, so the night included a fundraiser for the local non-profit, Betties360. Bettie’s has been introducing young girls and non-binary youth to various outdoor activities and enrichment programs in Portland public schools since 2005. Both Sarah and I realized we felt strongly connected to the ethos of Bettie’s mission and wanted to help them reach their fundraising goal of $36,000 by June to support their programs.
If you feel inspired to learn more about what Betties360 is doing for young girls and non-binary youth, or feel compelled to donate/volunteer with their organization, click here (Nonprofit | Betties360 | Portland)
So many amazing sponsors pitched in to support our vision and helped make the night memorable for everyone. Attendees who signed up received complimentary cafe gift cards from Nossa Familia Coffee Roasters and free swag from Shimano and Skratch Labs. As a part of the fundraising efforts, we also raffled off a Code RSC brakeset generously donated by SRAM, as well as tires and apparel from Specialized. All of the raffle ticket sales from the night raised a total of $570 for Betties360 – a small contribution – but it truly showed us what’s possible when we team together to create something meaningful.
All in all, we’re still reeling from everything that transpired that night. We weren’t entirely sure what kind of showing to expect leading up to everything… But standing in front of a room full of 30-40 women who were hyped to learn and connect through a shared passion was absolutely priceless.