QBP Women’s Mechanic Scholarship Winners Announced

This past year QBP sought outside help to be able to diversify scholarship winners, with an emphasis on women of color and it worked out.  This year’s winners pool has TRIPLE the number of women of color over last year and nearly 9x as many as the first year of the scholarship. Let’s hope this trend continues.

QBP and Partner Sponsors Announce 2017 Women’s Bike Mechanic

Scholarship Recipients

QBP and partner title sponsors SRAM, Park Tool, Michelin and UBI are delighted to announce

the winners of the

2017 Women’s Bicycle Mechanics Scholarship

. Sixteen women will attend

UBI’s Professional Shop Repair and Operations Workshop in Ashland, Oregon later this month.

This class is the second all-women class of this two-week mechanics training. The scholarship

covers the winners’ tuition and lodging and provides a small stipend to help defray the personal

expenses of travel and meals.

The scholarship was created with two goals in mind:

1.

Keep, encourage, and grow the careers of talented women working in the cycling

industry through the development of technical skills and knowledge

2.

Better serve and grow women ridership.

The ultimate goal is to advance specialty bicycle retail through growth in women’s

cycling

Industry leaders working to grow women in cycling by sponsoring this program for 2016 include

Quality Bicycle Products, SRAM, Park Tool, Michelin, United Bicycle Institute (UBI), Jagwire,

Saris, Kryptonite, White Lightning, Stan’s No Tubes, DT Swiss, Swiftwick, and Dero.

The scholarship, now in its fourth year and has grown significantly since it began in 2014 when

two scholarships were offered. With the 16 women to attend this year, 44 women have or will

have attended this professional mechanics training.

This year more sponsors joined the cause, helping to drive the growth of women’s cycling, and

the development of women in the industry. The process of selecting the winners from over 300

qualified applicants is a responsibility the organizers take very seriously. Every applicant

expressed commitment to growing women in cycling, and many have been actively working to

make this happen. In addition to this commitment and active work, the sixteen women chosen

stood out because of their personal leadership in growing women’s cycling in their area.

Congratulations to these 2017 scholarship recipients:

Allison Greenlee, Good Karma Bikes, San Jose, CA

Ashanti Austin, The Hub Bike Co-op, Minneapolis, MN

Bryonna Baines, Cycles for Change, St. Paul, MN

B Vivit, Huckleberry Bicycles, San Francisco, CA

Camille Lampel, Kween Kargo Bike Shop, Brooklyn, NY

Cassandra Faustini, The Devil’s Gear, New Haven, CT

Danielle Fry, Ogden Bicycle Collective, Ogden, UT

Danni Limonez, West Town Bikes, Chicago, IL

Elizabeth Bejan, Revolve Community Bike Shops, Kansas City, MO

Elyse Bejasa, Dashing Bicycles, New Orleans, LA

Geneva Balladares, The Bike Shop Hawaii, HI

Kelly Paduch, Rocktown Bicycles, Harrisonburg, VA

Laura Solis, Western Bike Works, Tigard, OR

Lee James, 718 Cyclery, Brooklyn, NY

Sara Ramirez, Bikes Together, Denver, CO

Vera Arias, The Miami Bike Shop, Miami, FL

The time at UBI will help each recipient build a solid foundation of technical knowledge that will

strengthen all aspects of their bike industry career.