Ted Cochran, who grew up in Columbia, Maryland, launched a nonprofit here that collects, repairs and distributes free bicycles to children. Photo © Anne Kelley Studio

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Ted Cochran of Columbia loves cycling — he’s biked 90 percent of all the rideable roads and trails in Howard County, by his estimation. He also helps thousands of Howard County children discover the joy of cycling.

The organization he founded seven years ago, Free Bikes 4 Kidz (FB4K) Maryland, annually refurbishes thousands of bicycles, gifting them in early December to low-income schoolchildren, kids whose families might not have been able to afford a bike or might never have thought of cycling for pleasure or transportation.

So far the group has given away about 12,000 bikes. Last year alone, it gave away more than 3,000.

Most of its bikes were donations, but about a third of last year’s total had been left at the county landfill’s bike recycling location. Howard County is one of the nation’s wealthiest areas, but a quarter of HCPS students are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced-cost meals.

A lifelong bicyclist, Cochran doesn’t want those kids to miss their chance to discover the sport. “I really want kids to be able to ride,” he said.

How it works

Over the course of a year, FB4K Maryland operates in, shall we say, cycles. Early in the year, volunteers collect bikes, moving them to one of several storage sites. (One site, at the Howard County landfill, collects and stores bikes for FB4K, making it the charity’s largest single provider of bikes).

FB4K Maryland gets really rolling, though, later in the year. As autumn approaches, Cochran begins to plan the October-December bike fix-up effort and the early December distribution. Every October, the group asks Howard residents to drop off no-longer-used bikes at their local firehouse. This year that date is Oct. 4.

“We can use about every bike we get, even Schwinn Varsities,” noted Cochran, referring to a hallmark 10-speed bike of the 1970s.

In fact, the group has received donations of adult trikes, an electric bike or two, and enough unicycles for many circuses. (The unicycles went to the University of Maryland’s juggling club.)

Once at the warehouse, volunteers clean and repair the bikes, and then Cochran verifies that the job was done correctly.

The cost to FB4K of each bike it gives away was in 2024 just $20, and $10 of that is due to the helmet — each child gets a new one. (FB4K doesn’t provide locks because useful ones cost more than $30.)

In early December, the group hosts its two giveaway days. That’s when parents bring their kids — who schools, churches, nonprofits and government agencies refer based on need — to receive bikes, often with a bike going to each child in a family.

Columbia native

Cochran, who’s in his 70s, grew up in Columbia, Maryland. When he was a teenager, at a time when friends were rushing to get a car, Cochran got a bike to ride to his first job at the Columbia Association’s pools.

After college he moved to Minnesota, where he worked as an engineer with Honeywell Corp. in Minneapolis. He rode his bike to work daily for nine years, even in the famously cold winters. He accumulated 25,000 miles on his bike’s odometer, which he figures saved over 1,000 gallons of gas and kept 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide from being expelled into the air.

While in Minneapolis, Cochran learned there was an existing organization in the city called FB4K, which gathered thousands of donated bikes, fixed them and gave them to kids. He joined their volunteer roster and put his skill in fixing things to use.

“Repairing those bikes, giving them away…it was awesome,” he recalled.

After Cochran retired in 2019, he and his wife moved back to Maryland, where his family has deep roots in public service.

His father, Edward, was Howard County executive for years and, now in his 90s, provides FB4K Maryland with one of its several storage facilities: a barn on his farm. One of Cochran’s siblings, meanwhile, is a Maryland State Delegate, and another is the artist who painted the murals in downtown Frederick, Maryland.

He said his family philosophy is “helping, if you have the opportunity to help.”

Cochran wanted to continue volunteering and realized that, after eight years at FB4K, he knew enough to open a Maryland affiliate.

“There probably wouldn’t be a Maryland affiliate if Ted hadn’t started it,” said Patrick Piet, an FB4K Maryland board member and volunteer from its start.

Other public-spirited people have opened FB4K affiliates in their own states, but the one Cochran founded in Maryland in 2019 outperformed them all last year. FB4K Maryland collected just under 500 bikes in 2019, its first year. Last year it gave away 3,345. That made it number one among 14 active FB4K affiliates nationally, even beating the original FB4K in Minneapolis.

Cochran believes the FB4K Maryland concept worked from the start simply because the community liked it: Between the environmental impact and the happy recipients, he said, “No one thinks this is a bad idea.”

Community leaders think it’s a great one. In April, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball lauded the group in a video message at FB4K Maryland’s annual ice cream social for volunteers. Ball singled out Cochran, saying, “I’m so grateful Ted has brought his passion to Howard County. He worked so hard to bring smiles to children’s faces.”

Making connections

Cochran, who has a Ph.D. in psychology but ended up running an R&D organization at Honeywell, admits he “was a weird engineer,” because he could build social connections, not just technical creations. With that skill, he brought in several corporate partners, a seven-member board and hundreds of volunteers.

Corporate partners include the four Baltimore-area Trek bicycle shops, which provide FB4K with their traded-in bikes (522 last year) and Prologis, which donates needed warehouse space. Another key partner, Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), provides funding, volunteers and used bikes from employees ­— last year 330 bikes, 30 of them new ones.

Yet the group’s greatest strength is its hundreds of volunteers. Last year, volunteers spent a total of 6,000 hours with FB4K Maryland, four times the level when the group began. They collect bikes from donation sites, clean or refurbish them, and then fit them to children on giveaway days.

During the cleaning and fixing phase, Cochran is at the warehouse nearly every day, sometimes for both the afternoon and evening shifts. His volunteers work at bike repair stands, salvaging parts from non-repairable bikes for other “patients” that need a transplant.

The volunteer mechanics are largely men and of the grey-haired set. They’re typically self-taught, having ridden bikes for decades, fixing them as needed. If mechanics encounter a difficult problem, say, a crank that won’t come off, they turn to Cochran and usually get a solution.

According to Cochran, the Maryland organization gets the highest number of volunteer hours among the FB4K affiliates nationally, because its volunteers typically return day after day, rather than taking a one-and-done approach. One 2024 volunteer worked more than 50 of the three-hour shifts, and four others, including Piet, worked more than 40 shifts, or 120 hours each.

As FB4K evolves, Cochran is trying to reach a couple of new service areas each year. It’s developing a connection with the city of Baltimore, for instance, and has provided bikes to the Baltimore Police Department for a bicycle patrol team.

In the meantime, the weather is perfect for cycling, and Cochran hopes to finish riding the Howard County roads he’s still not traveled.

For more information or to donate a bike, visit fb4kmaryland.org or email info@fb4kmaryland.org.