Charles Sturt is the council of the western suburbs of Adelaide, and takes great pride in their diverse community, arts and outdoor activities. The City of Charles Sturt has beautiful natural areas with infrastructure designed to encourage and promote walking, running and cycling. They even have a free bike hire scheme.

All4cycling has installed bike maintenance stations throughout the city. and, as you can see on the bike maintenance stations map there are six of these stations located on key cycling corridors. These maintenance stations have a range of retractable tools for minor bike repair work and bike pumps to keep those tyres turning.

This all started with funding support from the Heart Foundation to encourage people to walk, cycle, scooter, park and run in their communities. Mark Hannan, Strategic Planner Open Space Environmental Management for the City of Charles Sturt, decided to use the funding to set up the first bike maintenance station at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre tram stop. Perfectly located for commuters who ride their bike and catch the tram. The use of the equipment quickly proved popular, and more bike maintenance stations started to emerge.

Bike Repair Stations as Pit Stop

“We want people to use the bike repair stations not just as an emergency repair stop, but as a Pit Stop for the smaller maintenance jobs as well. Cyclists can use the stations to check their tyres and do some other preventative maintenance and checks.” explains Mark Hannan. 

Underneath the bike maintenance map, we’ve linked to some useful “how to” videos as well, to help in those small repairs and maintenance jobs on the go.

In the past, the council did have experience with other bike repair stations that were not supplied by All4cycling, however the robustness and quality of the All4cycling products stands out. The retractable tools ensure the bike repair station doesn’t turn into an accidental wind chime and the stainless-steel stations can withstand the coastal weather perfectly fine.

“It’s great to see the bike repair stations in use, even while we were installing one, a family stopped and asked whether they could use the pump already. That really was great to see,” Mark said.

Bike Repair Maintenance Stations and Vandalism

When it comes to vandalism, we’ve had a period where this happened a few times in a row at the Woodville Train Station. Even though the tools were attached with steel cables to the bike maintenance station, they still managed to saw these off. All4cyling took this on board, discussed this with their manufacturer and upgraded their products to be even more robust against vandalism.

We see a lot of cyclists using the bike maintenance stations and we have a great relationship with All4cyling. I’d be more than happy to chat with any other councils to explain our processes and decisions made to set up these stations.

Next on their plans is looking into scooter and skateboard repair stations.