Looking Back on 2024

With more in store for 2025!

By Rebecca Branle

2024 marked ten years since Bikeworks began selling and servicing bicycles in Lancaster County. We first opened our doors in Intercourse, Pennsylvania, doing all the things community bike shops do with a special focus on bicycle rentals and guided tours. Back then, it was just Mark and me running the shop and leading tours to the home of our Amish friends. We’d peddle over covered bridges, often with baby Anna in a Burley bicycle trailer, before arriving at Dave and Naomi’s farmette. Without fail, their five children, now nearly all grown, would greet us with the happiest hugs. Our group would indulge in a delicious PA Dutch dinner while watching the sunset over rolling farmland.

That first year, we hosted our inaugural Cranksgiving food-raising bicycle ride. We had less than 20 generous riders, and while that seems small today, at the time, we were floored by the scene - a crew of riders heading out to local grocery stores to purchase and donate food to local families in need. This year, 200 riders took off from Lititz Bikeworks. Thousands of pounds of food, crates of feminine and cleaning products, and thousands of dollars in cash were donated to organizations serving local families. 

Earth to Lititz Events

Joining Bikeworks in Community Work

If you read the above story and wondered why our events are all bicycle-based, well, it has a lot to do with Bikeworks’ decade-long head start! Earth to Lititz hasn't yet crossed our one-year mark, but we're gearing up to host our own good stuff!

We’re currently working on an urban hiking concept that will bring us together to explore downtown Lititz - with biodegradable trash bags in hand. Let us know if you like the idea of covering ground all around town with regular hikes on different routes. We’ll uncover Lititz’s most naturally and historically beautiful areas and leave them better than we found them, taking any trash with us as we go!

But that's not all. We'd love to offer more events and more products that support your active lifestyle. To help us head in the right direction, please consider clicking the link below to offer some guidance.

Ready, Set, Ski!

The coolest way to embrace the cold

By Mark Branle

The days are short, everything appears to look grey and damp, and the hope for an early spring lingers. Welcome to the hardship of a Northeast winter...NOT! 

A lifetime ago I was having a conversation with a couple who had returned from having lived in the Caribbean for ten years. There were many reasons for moving there, and even more reasons for their eventual return to PA, but there was one that stood out to me the most. “We miss the seasons! Folks here don’t realize how boring living in one climate can be.” On the face of it then, yeah, living in sunny 80 degrees does sound amazing, but how many of us would dream of seeing the autumn leaves change again, or hearing songbirds singing away on an early Spring morning, or, and I’m saving the best for last... waking up to a beautiful fresh snowfall in January?

Admittedly, cold weather isn’t for everyone. When I was racing bicycles and needed a lot of miles on the bike to keep my fitness up, I cursed the cold months. My wife would prefer if her winters were 80 and sunny 😊. Over the past five years since giving up bike racing, I’ve devoted my winters to teaching our three kids to ski, and I must say, it is the season I look forward to most.  

So, where do we like to ski? Click below to learn more!

Introducing Bicycle Recycle

Give your old bike a new life

By Josh Kreiser

Do you have an unused bike collecting dust in your garage or shed? Feel like doing something good for your community? Consider donating it to Lititz Bikeworks! Back in November, we started a program called Bicycle Recycle - the mission of the program is to refurbish donated bikes and give those bikes to members of the community who are needing or deserving.

A World of Peace in the Winter Woods

An invitation to explore winter trails by local runner Willa Freer

There was a long time in my teenage and young adult years when I so looked forward to winter because it meant that I didn’t have to leave my couch very often – to play a sport (I was a spring and fall athlete), to do yard work (my parents LOVED to garden), or otherwise be told to “get outside and do something” (in my defense I was and still am a voracious reader – hence the couch). I also simply loved, as I still do, the cozy nature of a warm home while a raging biting winter stormed outside – I relished how my little family spent more time in one room talking or reading or watching TV without the Spring/Summer/Fall pressure TO DO. I avoided wandering outside in the cold like I avoided serious talks about “my future” and was perfectly content with that rhythm. I would not choose to take a walk, let alone a run, on a deep winter day unless I had just eaten too much Turkey or someone had made an event out of it – maybe a stroll of a crisp beach while visiting my parents, wandering down the streets to compare Christmas decorations, or a climb up to the top of a local hill. We would put on layers (usually too many and forgot the gloves) and head out without enough water to meet the goal of coming back inside to be warm and rosy and drinking hot cocoa with a feeling of freezing accomplishment and superiority over those who refused to take off their pj’s. But then I followed my boyfriend to Montana and my future husband taught me to ski and snowshoe and layer appropriately and suddenly I could enjoy being an athlete in the cold like never before.

• Sun Salutations with Black Cat Yoga at Earth to Lititz, Every Monday, 8 am - 8:45 am, Intermediate Level Yoga - Join us for this amazing class. It's the best way to start your week - we promise!
• Lititz Fire & Ice - Head to downtown Lititz between February 14th and the 23rd to take in the beauty of ice sculptures placed all around town. Earth to Lititz is excited to be a part of the fun. Stop and see our sculptures, and then come inside for our winter clearance sale!