Two-Wheeled Passion
Billy Bradford of Bad Business Model Bikes and his girlfriend Ari are gearing up for this year's AIDS Lifecycle event in June. The company has repaired and donated 20 professional bikes for the ride this year.
On any given Sunday, you’ll find Billy Bradford in his garage surrounded by bicycles in various stages of repair happily fixing a busted chain or bent tire rim. The various mountain bikes, cruisers, and road bikes will be added to the hundreds of other two-wheelers that Bradford has donated to the community since 2014.
“We’ve given away more than 600 bikes since we started,” Bradford told the Forum. “I have a passion for bicycles. I like riding them. I like working on them. And I like donating them.”
Bradford is known around Castro Valley as the guy you can go to if you need a bike, and you can’t afford one. His company, Bad Business Model Bikes, gets its supply from various sources. Bradford then uses his past experience working on cars as well as lots of advice from local bike stores like Eden Bikes and Cyclepath in Hayward as well as YouTube channels to help him spruce up the bicycles enough to be functional.
“I get about three bikes a week, typically when someone says they have an old bike in the backyard or garage that they can’t use anymore,” Bradford said. “Sometimes the stores will get a trade-in that is not worth it for them to fix up, so they will give them to me.”
In addition to handing out bikes to Castro Valley residents, Bad Business Model has also participated in three major donation drives. In 2017, Bradford helped deliver more than 25 bikes to families who were displaced from the Sonoma Complex fires. After Afghani refugees fled their country in 2021, the Muslim Community Center in Castro Valley contacted Bradford who managed to supply recent arrivals with bikes for people to get around since they did not have cars.
“Then there was this school in Union City where an assistant principal contacted me to help the school renovate some bikes,” Bradford said. “They wanted to award the bikes to students who had perfect attendance throughout the year. They showed me a gym full of bikes that needed repairs. I put together 12 kid bikes and ended up giving them 15 for the school.”
From a 1976 Peugeot to AIDS LifeCycle
Bradford started his passion for road bikes with his first 10-speed, a 1976 Peugeot which he says he rode all over the place until it was stolen. He prefers the classic models—French and Italian—that were built in the late 60s and early 70s with bullhorn handlebars.
“Vintage bikes are like a sculpture to me,” Bradford says. “They are classic because of the color or the lettering or the decals. They’re also fun to ride. But I put as much passion into restoring every bike as if I was going to ride it myself.”
He now rides a Bianchi road bike around town but is training for the 2022 AIDS LifeCycle on a used 2012 Motobécane, which he says is a great bike for the San Francisco to Los Angeles trip running 85 miles a day for several days.
“It has what we call, brifters, a cross between a brake and a gear shift. It keeps everything in one place, so you don’t have to move your hands around,” Bradford says.
Bradford has also combined his riding and repair passions and has donated bikes to AIDS LifeCycle riders. He says there will be 20 bikes on the road this year that he helped repair. He and his girlfriend have made a special effort to donate these bikes to riders of color and women riders
“We were on a training ride the other day and I saw five bikes I had a hand in renovating,” he says. “It was inspiring to know that we’re helping people who are getting donations together for a worthwhile cause.”
To learn more about the AIDS LifeCycle ride this year, visit aidslifecycle.org.