Bike Plant Becomes a Worker-Owned Cooperative in Bedford-Stuyvesant

Bike Plant Becomes a Worker-Owned Cooperative in Bedford-Stuyvesant

In December 2025, Bike Plant, a neighborhood bike shop in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, completed its transition to worker ownership, becoming a worker-owned cooperative.

Founded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bike Plant has served Brooklyn cyclists with bicycle sales, parts, accessories, and high-quality repair services. From the start, the shop built deep roots in the community — not only through its work on bikes, but through regular barbecues and repair workshops, and a “pay-it-forward” repair fund that has provided more than $50,000 in free or heavily subsidized repair services to low-income cyclists in the neighborhood.

Today, five of Bike Plant’s seven employees are worker-owners, collectively owning and operating the business.

Aligning Practice With Structure

Bike Plant was founded by Robin Graven-Milne, who involved staff members as collaborators in running the business and setting workplace policies from the beginning. Over time, the shop’s day-to-day culture reflected shared responsibility and collective decision-making — even as the legal structure remained a conventional small business.

Transitioning to a worker cooperative allowed Bike Plant to formally align its governance with how the business already operated in practice. Employee ownership also created a pathway to share responsibility, promote long-term retention, and ensure that the shop’s community-oriented mission remains central as the business grows.

Robin remains involved as a worker-owner and continues to serve as day-to-day general manager.

“Running a business can be hard and scary, but also deeply rewarding, and I couldn’t imagine a better team to share that with.” - Robin

Building Stability, Wealth, and Voice

As a worker-owned cooperative, Bike Plant aims to:

• strengthen long-term business stability
  
  
• build worker wealth through shared ownership
  
  
• deepen employee engagement and collective decision-making
  
  
• continue serving Brooklyn’s cycling community through high-quality service, community events, and free or subsidized repairs
  
  
• demonstrate worker ownership as a viable model for small businesses in New York City
  
  

The shop also stands out in the male-dominated bicycle industry as an NYC-certified M/WBE, with a majority of staff identifying as female or non-binary.

Supporting the Transition

Bike Plant’s transition was supported by The ICA Group and Brooklyn Legal Services.

ICA guided the cooperative through valuation and feasibility analysis, employee education, and an employee-led process to design governance and management structures. Brooklyn Legal Services translated those decisions into a legally binding operating agreement and supported the legal and financial mechanics of the sale.

The relationship began when one of Bike Plant’s now worker-owners — previously a worker-owner at another ICA-supported cooperative — referred the business to ICA in early 2024.

A Community-Rooted Future

Bike Plant’s conversion reflects a growing interest in worker ownership as a way for locally rooted businesses to preserve their values, retain jobs, and keep ownership anchored in the communities they serve.

Now operating as a worker cooperative, Bike Plant enters its next chapter with shared responsibility for both the shop’s success and its role as a community institution in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

🔗 Learn more: https://www.bikeplant.net/

‍