Seattle's Rob P. Repairs Hundreds of Free Bikes After 2017 Brain Injury

1 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Jun 25

Hundreds of donated bicycles have been repaired and given away by Rob P., a 54-year-old Seattle man who turned the painstaking work into a post-injury mission and source of purpose.
A 2017 crosswalk crash left him with a traumatic brain injury, partial blindness and lingering paralysis; after years of rehab and depression, he began fixing bikes in 2021 using notes and routines to work with his “new brain.”
Rob focuses on bikes shops would discard because repairs can exceed a bike’s value, spending hours restoring rusted parts and then matching finished bikes with people through Seattle’s Buy Nothing network.
Doctors and brain-injury specialists say the work draws on procedural memory and offers a model for recovery, as survivors often struggle most with identity and finding a new role in their communities.