Building a Pipeline of Talent for the Micromobility Sector through Bike Training Collective Canada

The bike industry needs to grow to secure a healthier, greener, and more joyful future in Southern Ontario. Strengthening career options for bike mechanics is essential.

The City of Toronto’s Net Zero Strategy has a target of converting 75% of trips under 5 kilometers from driving to cycling and other forms of micro mobility by 2040. In Toronto, the bike industry would need to grow by 10-20% every year in sales and servicing to meet such an increase in demand for cycling.

For many bike retailers in Toronto, attracting qualified bike mechanics is a significant challenge to meeting this growth. A new collaboration between The Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) and several key micro mobility industry stakeholders across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, generously supported by the Peter Gilgan foundation, aims to contribute to a solution through:

• Developing a standardized and professionalized approach to training bike mechanics.
• Bringing new diversity into the micro mobility industry.
• Ensuring the industry can meet the anticipated growth in the number of cycling trips.

Through our first pilot project running from Summer 2024 to Summer 2025, we are proud to have:

• Brought together training organizations and employers to define key skills an entry level bike mechanic must have to work in any bike retailer, co-creating a standardized “Tier 2” bike mechanic curriculum
• Training 38 new mechanics
  • 11 of which found immediate job placement
  • 89% of whom were youth
  • 55% of whom were women or non-binary individuals
  • 53% of whom identify as racialized

To learn more, visit the Bike Training Collective Canada website at: bikecareer.ca