Bicycle Do-Gooder Receives Jefferson Award

Billy Bradford is the person to see in Castro Valley if you need a bike. His Bad Business Model Bikes has donated about 700 bikes over the years to people. For example, he recently donated 23 kids' bikes to this year's Alameda County Fire Department Toy Drive.  

Last week, Bradford was acknowledged for his philanthropic efforts with a Jefferson Award by KPIX the CBS Television affiliate in San Francisco. The station is a media partner of Multiplying Good, a 50-year-old national public service organization formerly known as the Jefferson Awards Foundation. 

"I wasn't expecting this at all. It's a bit odd to get an award for something you do because you love to help other people," Bradford told the Forum. "And even though I got the award, I am just the middleman. The bikes are donated to me by giving people, and I just fix them up and pass them along to other people in need." 

Those in need included several cyclists participating in this past year's AIDS LifeCycle Ride fundraising event from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Most of the bikes are picked up by locals who just need two wheels to get around town.

"I enjoy taking a bike that's thrashed and making it pretty," Bradford told the KPIX reporter. "For me, it's like restoring a painting. It's art in motion."

In exchange, Bradford asks that new bike riders pay it forward and do something nice for someone else.

Of course, Castro Valley Forum Readers have known about Bradford's passion for restoring and donating bikes for some time now (check out our article here: https://mycvforum.com/recent-headlines/two-wheeled-passion).

Bradford said he retired this year and now is devoting more time to the bikes and building community through his program. 

"There's like this circle of happiness that's happening. People are happy they're helping. I'm happy to work on the bikes, and the people that get the bikes are happy," he told KPIX. "There's a whole lot of happy in my driveway. And I'm in the middle of it." 

Bradford says he's been invited to the television station's award ceremony in February along with other local Jefferson Award recipients.