Written By Vivian Disalvo (Class of 2026)
Mitchell Connell (’15) grew up in Nashville, so moving to Knoxville for college was a big change. But when he spotted a fellow student riding a Surly Long Haul Trucker bike down Ped Walkway, he knew he’d found his people here. Now a proud co-owner and co-founder of Two Bikes nonprofit, Connell credits much of his success to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“I remember following the cyclist because I loved that kind of bike, and I never saw people with them,” says Connell. “The student rode all the way to the UT Outdoors Program [UTOP], which is where my love for bikes and biking really flourished.”
Connell worked for UTOP for three years before graduating with a degree in geology and environmental studies and founding Two Bikes with friend Matthew Zingg. True to its name, the biking nonprofit gives a bike away for each one they refurbish and sell.
The nonprofit also has a community rides program where they offer group bike rides to the public in an effort to promote bikes as a viable means of transportation and recreation. In addition, they run The Bike School, a youth development program where local underserved youth can receive job training as bike mechanics and sales associates.
Students in the bike school
“Through bicycle recycling, we’ve kept hundreds of thousands of pounds of waste out of local landfills, taking things that are going to get thrown away, diverting them from the landfill, and providing them back to the community as viable transportation,” says Connell.
When he started the nonprofit, Connell needed the help of his UT community to get Two Bikes on its feet. One of his professors from the Winston College of Law, Eric Amarante, helped establish the nonprofit as a 501c3 organization and register with the IRS. This is a process that would normally be very expensive and arduous, but with the help of a Vol, it was relatively stress-free for Connell.
Many others from the Vol family pitched in to get Two Bikes off the ground, including a UT alumna and friend of Connell’s who helped build the shop’s first bike racks and early sponsors like Randy Boyd, UT System president. Through the Boyd Foundation, Boyd and his family were pivotal in helping Connell get Two Bikes started.
“I couldn’t even list all the community members and people in my network that I met by going to UT that are still passionate supporters of the work that we’re doing today,” says Connell. “They help us do a lot of the things that we do, like giving bikes away and offering workforce development.”
Connell previously worked for another nonprofit called Dream Bikes, with a similar mission. When Dream Bikes decided to close, he wanted to fill the gap that was left. And with the help of his Knoxville network, Two Bikes now has two locations (one in Knoxville and one in Chattanooga) and five full-time staff members. They’ve trained more than 100 students and have 16 paid interns as part of the Two Bikes youth development program.
“I learned how to work on bikes when I was an intern at 15 years old,” says Connell. “So it’s super rewarding to me to offer similar opportunities for other young people.”
