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OAKLAND — Binky Brown wasted no time getting down to business.

Standing under an overcast sky at the corner of Mandela Parkway and West Grand Avenue in Oakland on Sunday with a small folding table, foam board sign and printed hand-outs, Brown launched right into her workshop: “How to fix a flat.”

Two other women were in attendance, along with Brown’s daughter, Adoncia Aldana, 11, who acted as Brown’s assistant. It was the first bicycling repair workshop in a series of four this month aimed specifically at women, people who identify as transgender, and people of color.

The founder and CEO of Hard Knox Bikes, a mobile bike shop in Oakland, Brown has made it her mission to target her free workshops to communities who are often overlooked in the bicycling world, a historically white and male-dominated form of transportation and recreation. The League of American Wheelmen (now the “League of American Bicyclists”) banned black members in 1894, a rule that was only officially revoked in 1999.

And, while there has been a growing number of nonwhite cyclists in recent years, their numbers are still not equal to their share of the population. In 2010, black and Hispanic residents made up 11 percent and 14 percent of the population, respectively, but only 5 percent and 6 percent of all cyclists, according to a 2011 report by the Gluskin Townley Group, a firm that does market research. And, women represented 24 percent of all bicycle trips in 2009 though they make up roughly half the population, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

It’s a disparity that often manifests as discouragement and one Brown experienced first-hand. In 2009, Brown was living in Oakland as a single mom without much money. She had been driving a sparkly, teal Jeep Cherokee she bought at auction until someone careened into it, rupturing the engine cylinder and sending her car to the scrapyard.

So she started taking the bus, which might have been fine if she hadn’t been born with one leg that’s a different length than the other, a condition that causes severe back pain and is exacerbated when she walks. Because buses don’t stop everywhere, that meant a lot of walking, she said, and a lot of pain.

“I thought I wasn’t going to be able to walk by the time I was 30 because I was in so much pain,” she said.

But all of that changed after she started dating a woman who was into bicycling. In order to keep up with her, Brown said, she needed a bike of her own.

“It changed everything,” she said. “I didn’t think I could ever be that physical. I also had my kid at that time, and I wasn’t aware, until I got into biking, all the ways I could bike with her. … I didn’t know bikes were that versatile.”

From that moment, Brown was hooked. She started taking her bike everywhere and getting more involved in the East Bay bicycling community, volunteering at various shops in Oakland and Richmond. But no matter which shop she went to, one thing stayed the same: most of the employees and bicycling collective members were men. With the exception of the Bikery, a bike shop in East Oakland run by Cycles for Change, they also were mostly white.

She’d bring her daughter to meetings, and other members wouldn’t acknowledge Aldana or be bothered to learn her name. Brown pushed for resources to reach out to more women and transgender cyclists but felt ignored. And she wouldn’t get as much help as other members, she said.

Something had to change.

She formed Hard Knox Bikes in 2014, named after Kitty Knox, a biracial bicyclist who, in the late 1800s, defied race and gender norms by insisting on riding a bicycle rather than the tricycles reserved for women at the time and caused a stir at the 1895 League of American Wheelmen convention by performing stunts outside, because she was barred from entering.

Brown wanted to carry on that legacy.

Since its inception, Hard Knox Bikes has held roughly six workshops per year, primarily focused on mechanical repairs that can be intimidating to people without much exposure to cycling or basic mechanic work. They’re hands-on and allow plenty of time for questions and personalized advice.

Brown also uses the shop as a form advocacy, partnering with Bike East Bay to convince the League of American Bicyclists to host its annual, three-day instructor certificate training in the East Bay for the first time last year, which is often required for people who want jobs at bicycle shops or with bicycle organizations.

Rainn Shaw, who works with Brown at the Oakland Public Library and who was at the workshop Sunday, wants to ride more but said she was discouraged after a truck nearly hit her on her bicycle one day. Seeing Brown and another coworker bike to work made her feel like it might be possible to try again. But she said she wasn’t sure of which routes to take in Oakland or how to do basic repairs.

“Having her as a resource is definitely encouraging,” Shaw said. “I had never changed a flat tire on my bicycle before. I didn’t think it’d be that easy.”

How to attend:

There are three more workshops this summer with Hard Knox Bikes. All the workshops will be held at Spokeland, a bike shop located at 813 37th St. in Oakland, just a few blocks from the MacArthur BART station.

How to Fix a Flat: July 11, 6-8 p.m.

Pre-Ride Check, preventative maintenance: July 25, 6-8 p.m.

Bike Clean, how to clean your bike: Aug. 4, 1-4 p.m.