The GoodTurn Cycle story began when Catherine Clements first rode a Pedego electric bike to the top of Vail Pass in Colorado. At first the high elevation and progressively steep grade made the distance a daunting task, but with the assist of the electric bike, Clements was able to ride to the top confidently. She experienced the outdoors in its unadulterated beauty as mountain faces and cool rivers passed her on either side of her bike. GoodTurn Cycles Denver came to fruition through the marriage of her passion for electric bikes and her desire to help youth facing challenging circumstances in her hometown.
Not too long afterward, when Clements visited a friend in the southwest of France, she recalled the same exhilarating feeling of exploring striking landscapes. She imagined the colourful Pedego bikes alongside the rolling hills, vineyards, and the small bastide towns known to the Dordogne region. After speaking with several French locals about the rising unemployment levels, Clements came face to face with the overwhelming youth unemployment rate in the area. She decided to expand GoodTurn Cycles and open its second location in the Dordogne Department, sharing the vision originally realized at GoodTurn Cycles Denver.
Our mission
To provide job training to French youth through electric bike shops that encourage an explorative, healthy, and energy-conscious lifestyle.
GoodTurn Cycles France is a nonprofit social enterprise, which is an organization that uses its revenue to benefit the community. In addition to selling electric bikes and providing ebike rentals and tours, we have an apprenticeship program for French youth. Our program provides job training in bike mechanics, financial planning, retail, entrepreneurship and management skills, and customer service to youth facing challenging circumstances. We focus on teaching work skills that are applicable to every future job, such as experience working with others, critical thinking skills, work ethic, customer service catered to a variety of nationalities, and an awareness of the needs of the enterprise. Working with our Pedego electric bikes promotes a meaningful, creative, and exciting employment opportunity.
GoodTurn Cycles originated in Denver, Colorado at the base of the Rocky Mountains. In Denver we work with several nonprofit organizations in order to place at-risk, unemployed youth into our apprenticeship program. GoodTurn Cycle’s founder, Catherine Clements, travelled to the Dordogne region and noticed the high rates of youth unemployment in the southwest French countryside. Because of the need for employment and job experience, Clements expanded GoodTurn Cycles and opened a location in Eymet, France, a frequented but quaint town in the heart of the region. With the area’s rolling countryside, famous wine, and historical towns and chateaux, it is a common summer destination for French, British, Spanish, and Dutch tourists.
In addition to our job training program for French youth, we hope to introduce electric bikes to the area to encourage healthy, explorative, and energy-efficient modes of transportation. With the region’s rolling hills, historic chateaux, and wineries, electric bikes offer an exciting, functional, healthy method of quickly travelling the region, whether the rider be a local or a tourist.