Image by lemonad via FlickrI have been fascinated by this bike shop ever since I read about this project last year in the Post-Gazette (click here to see the 2007 article). I wasn’t even sure that shop was still in business but ever since I read the article I keep seeing people wearing Kraynick’s Bike T-shirts (Where can I get one?).

Well Bike Pgh just posted an article from the Post-Gazette – the Bike Before Christmas project is back for another holiday season. This is a project that is coordinated by the City of Pittsburgh Police and Jerry Kraynick. This is the 4th year of the program – last year Mr. Kraynick with the help of some volunteers tuned up 230 bikes which were distributed to kids for Christmas.

You can help by donating bikes to:

Kraynick’s Bikes, 5300 Penn Ave or any of the City’s Police Stations

• Zone 1, 1501 Brighton Road, North Side
• Zone 2, 2000 Centre Ave., Hill District
• Zone 3, 18th and Mary Streets,
• South Side
• Zone 4, 5858 Northumberland St., Squirrel Hill
• Zone 5, Penn Circle West at Broad Street, East Liberty.

Check out this awesome panorama photo of the bike shop that the Post-Gazette put together. Here is a write up on the shop in Dirt Rag magazine.

I enjoyed reading more about this bike shop – here is what some other bloggers that wrote about Kraynick’s:

• Maintain – compares a NYC shop to Kraynick’s
• Breathing Dirt – Mr. Kraynick helped him build a bike to ride in the MS150
• Null Space – Chris Briem cites this article as “What Makes Pittsburgh Pittsburgh”
• SF Cyclotouring – “my all-time favorite shop in the whole wide world”
• Everything Nathan – Mr. Kraynick helped build Nathan’s bike