No burglary at Rich City Rides, police say, pointing to possible dispute between bike shop’s partners.

The Rich Cty Rides building shows brown paper covering the windows on the front door. The 15th Street and Macdonald Avenue signs are in front.

This story was reported and published in a collaboration between Richmond Confidential and Richmondside.  Najari Smith, co-founder and co-owner of Rich City Rides Cooperative Inc., reported to police on Jan. 13 that he walked into the bike co-op on Macdonald Avenue in Richmond and found thousands of dollars of merchandise missing. In the following days,…

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Rich City Rides launches $6 million fundraising campaign

Rich City Rides

Rich City Rides is racing to raise $6 million in the next four months to secure its future in Richmond and expand services.  The bike group launched a campaign in March to purchase three properties, including the longtime home of its bike shop at 1500 Macdonald Ave. The organization has received $1.2 million in donations…

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Richmond mayor delivers State of the City address

Richmond Mayor Tom Butt honored four Richmond residents—Marcus Faumui, Najari Smith, Betty Reid Soskin and Alysa Liu—as part of his annual State of the City address. Photo by Edward Booth.

Butt’s roughly hour-long speech, assisted by a data-laden slideshow and a short promotional video, provided a present-day overview of Richmond’s finances, education, public safety, transportation, housing, commercial development, business, economy and environment.

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Community involvement takes on illegal dumping

According to a city report, in 2017, Richmond’s abatement staff collected more than three million pounds of illegally dumped debris from 13,430 locations. A pile of waste strewn around the entrance of the Lillie Mae Jones Trail is just one example of dozens of waste piles illegally dumped throughout the city of Richmond on a daily basis.

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‘What would it be like if you owned the business down the street?’: Richmond residents fight for more ownership over their careers

Najari Smith, Josue Hernandez, and Roshni “Tay” McGee have opened a worker-owned cooperative in Richmond called Rich City Rides. The bike repair shop opened in 2015, but the organization responsible for community rides and outdoor activities, has been around for five years. The goal is to have a space where people can come in and…

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Agents of Change: Scenes of a city in motion

Andromeda Brooks (top left), Jonny Perez (top right), Menbere Aklilu (bottom left), and Najari Smith (bottom right) are four of Richmonds "Agents of Change" working to improve Richmond's community. (Photo by Brittany Kirstin)

Old opinions about Richmond often seem set in stone, but at least some of the worst may be on the way out.

That’s what we tried to document in “Agents of Change,” a series of photographs and feature stories by Richmond Confidential’s Brittany Kirstin, a photojournalism student at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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Creating a stronger community through bicycling

Najari Smith and Geovanni Levy work together at the Rich City Rides bike shop to properly measure and adjust a bike seat. (Photo by Brittany Kirstin)

When you walk into Rich City Rides you’re immediately met with the sweet smell of bicycle oil and the satisfying click-click-click of shifting gears. Najari Smith, the owner and founder of the nonprofit group that owns the shop, is working in the back along with mechanics Taye Roshni McGee and Rafael Fernandez.

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