Best place to tweak your two-wheeler

Think back to your first bicycle. The flip side of those early scrapes and bruises was freedom! escape from the all-seeing supervision of your parents! the open road! That piecemeal pile of metal meant self-sufficiency, even if it technically lasted only to the end of the street. Now that you're all grown up, don't let technical glitches get the better part of your glory. With a little TLC, that same frame that got you to the mall all by yourself can outlast everything you bought there. Enter the Broadway Bicycle School. Their emphatic goal is "to encourage the use of bicycles as a form of transport," explains Shelly Doo, one of five collective members who run the 26-year-old Cambridge establishment. That means offering basic and advanced mechanics classes and giving individual instruction, as well as selling new bikes and fixing old ones. Parts come and go, but the basic structure stays the same: the school keeps up its commitment to radical politics, though the early slogan "More than bikes will be free/When we eject the bourgeoisie!" has given way to today's "Seize the wrench!" Spend a few hours with the friendly staff (all-female on Fridays) and you'll be zipping off smarter and happier before you can say rebuilt derailleur.

Broadway Bicycle School, 351 Broadway, Cambridge. (617) 868-3392.