Performance Bicycle and Liberty Tire Recycling Mount Bike Tube Recycling Drive

Pittsburgh and Chapel Hill (Vocus) April 21, 2010 -- The nation’s leading tire recycler and largest multi-channel specialty bike retailer are teaming up to encourage cyclists and bike enthusiasts to recycle their bike inner tubes.

This spring, Performance Bicycle (http://www.performancebike.com/) and Liberty Tire Recycling (http://www.libertytire.com/Home.aspx) will launch the “Bike Tube Blow-Out,” a bike tube recycling program that will run during the grand openings of 12 Performance retail stores beginning in April. The Bike Tube Blow-Out invites anyone to bring in their old bike inner tubes and receive up to three $5 money cards for each tube they recycle.

The bike tubes will be collected by Liberty Tire Recycling, the nation’s largest collector of used and scrap tires, and reused as mulch for playgrounds, athletic fields, railroad ties and weightlifting plates, among other applications. The company collects and recycles nearly one-third of all of America's annual scrap tire material, with a collection network that covers more than 60,000 locations in the U.S. In the past seven years, Liberty Tire has cleaned up more than 150 dump sites littered with nearly 40 million scrap tires—more than any other organization.

“We estimate that a major city can generate several tons of used rubber just from blown out bicycle inner tubes alone, and it usually ends up in landfills,” said Jim Thompson, CEO of Performance Inc. “Our aim is to make bike inner tubes a proven reusable resource for playgrounds, manufacturing and other applications.”

“By collecting and recycling these used bicycle tires, Liberty Tire Recycling is preventing them from entering the waste stream or ending up in a landfill,” added Jeff Kendall, CEO of Liberty Tire. “This recycling initiative with Performance Bicycle shows respect for our environment. Moreover, the tires we collect and recycle can be transformed into smart products that make people’s lives better and safer – everything from rubberized asphalt for the nation’s highways to rubber mulch for playgrounds and parks.”

Bike Tube Blow-Out Locations

Beginning in April, Performance Bicycle and Liberty Tire will host “Bike Tube Blow-Out collection drives during the grand openings of stores in the following locations:

•    Indianapolis

•    Santa Rosa, CA (Sonoma County)

•    Oxnard, CA

•    Woodland Hills, CA

•    Raleigh, NC

•    Columbia, MD (Washington, D.C.)    •    Tualatin, OR (Portland)

•    Santa Monica, CA

•    Allentown, PA

•    Pittsburgh, PA

•    Tukwila, WA (Seattle)

•    Lombard, IL (Chicago)

Anybody can come to one of these Performance Bicycle stores during the grand opening weekend to drop off unused or blown-out inner tubes. All donors will receive up to three $5 Performance money cards, good for new bike inner tubes or other merchandise.

More information regarding the dates of the grand opening weekends will be released in the coming weeks through official announcements, the companies’ websites and via Twitter @Performance_Inc (http://twitter.com/performance_inc) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Performance-Bike/370901358803?ref=nf).

About Liberty Tire

Liberty Tire Recycling is the premier provider of tire recycling services in the U.S. By reclaiming almost one-third of the nation’s tire waste, Liberty Tire transforms millions of discarded tires into raw materials for innovative, sustainable products. The recycled rubber produced by Liberty Tire is used as crumb rubber and industrial feedstock for molded products; as tire-derived fuel for industrial kilns, mills and power plants; and as rubber mulch for landscaping and playgrounds. The company maintains a nationwide network of processing plants, and comprehensive door-to-door collection services. Liberty Tire Recycling is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. For more information, please visit www.libertytire.com.

About Performance Bicycle

Performance Bicycle is the number one multi-channel bike specialty retailer in the U.S. and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Performance Inc. Performance provides a multi-channel cycling retail experience that spans catalogs, a website at www.performancebike.com and 86 nationwide stores that cater to both the avid biking enthusiast and the recreational rider. Performance Inc. is majority owned by North Castle Partners of Greenwich, Connecticut. For more information about Performance Bicycle, please visit www.performancebike.com.

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