February 2015 - TheThinkTank - lists.bikecollectives.org

Reusable Repair Checklist Tag
by director 02 May '23

02 May '23

Hey All, We just spent some time and redid the tag we use to track repairs on a bike. I'm sure your shops are similar to ours in that many mechanics of varying skill levels will work on a single bike before it's distributed back to the world for use. This make it challenging to ensure a standard of quality on any given bike leaving the shop. As we fleshed out the tag we realized that it could function loosely as a curriculum. For most mechanics, especially students we suggest starting at the top and working down the list. I've come to realize that no two mechanics will do things in the exact same way, everyone has their own style. We've been suggesting that folks do the first two items in order and then address the rest of the repairs at their discretion. Of course we couldn't put everything on a half page so we had to make compromises. You'll notice as you get closer to the bottom of the tag the categories are a little more broad and don't get into the finer details. We're working on a final check list that will include finer details like checking bearing play, tire wear, fine tune derailleurs and brakes... The final checklist won't hang on the bike but it'll be around the shop and part of our training. Stay tuned for this. We print these double sided, cut them in half and laminate them. We hang them on the handlebars and fill them out with a Sharpie. When the bike is done and gone we clean the Sharpie off with 90% rubbing alcohol and a rag. This allows us to use one tag over and over and over. We've been using these tags for about 2 weeks now and it's been awesome. Communication between mechanics is much clearer and bikes are getting done faster. It's really helped orient Earn-A-Bike students to what needs to be done next on their bike. Anyway if you think it's a good idea feel free to adapt it to your shops needs. -- Ride On! Rich Points http://communitycycles.org Executive Director (c)303-589-0597 (w)720-565-6019 Community Cycles is Boulder's only bike shop dedicated to bike commuting. Find us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/CommunityCycles

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no boys allowed zine from bikebike?
by veganboyjosh＠gmail.com 27 Sep '18

27 Sep '18

hey all, i'm looking to get in touch with the person who wrote/published the "no boys allowed" zine which was passed out at bikebike in san francisco. it was part of one of the oppression and gender identity issues workshops. we're looking to start a women's night here at community cycles, and i'd like to scan my copy as a pdf and email it to potential volunteers, as well as make some copies to have in the shop... if you're on the list, or if you know the person who wrote it (her name escapes me), please get in touch with me off list... thanks! josh. community cycles boulder

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Instruction for Marginalized Communities: Women on Wheels and Multilingual Nights
by Lauren Warbeck 26 Feb '16

26 Feb '16

Oh HEYYYY again... It's a double email kinda day. 1) Multilingual Nights We're hosting our first ever multilingual nights YAYYYYY! We now have a posse of rad mechanics who are fluent in English, Spanish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin and we are planning to hold a series of multilingual instruction nights. We're about to have our first sub-committee meeting about how we're going to go about the planning of these nights (ie: Do we have a strictly Spanish night, or a Spanish & French night? What is the role of Anglo mechanics in these nights? What are the underlying needs of these communities beyond language instruction?), but first I wanted to find out if any of you have feedback or resource materials about your own experiences hosting multilingual nights. What did you set out to do? Did it work? What did you learn? 2) Women on Wheels We're in the process of reconsidering the reach and name of our women's night, Women on Wheels. This name has been revisited several times by our collective, and again we're feeling the need for change. Those of you who commit energy to thinking about providing services across the gender/sexuality spectrum...I'm looking for your input. The key challenges for us, (and maybe all of us?) I think, are two-fold: First, it's about holding space for those who adhere to identity politics (tangible and named - Woman, Lesbian, Dyke, sometimes Transwoman etc) while also holding space for folks who exist all along the gender and sexuality spectrum (intangible and variably named - Queer, Tomboi, sometimes Transwoman, Genderqueer, etc ). As in, how do we hold safer space for butch grandmas and trans women and gender queer folks all at once? Is it feasible or possible to hold safer space strictly around gender variance? Or is it presumptuous as fuck to try to lump these diverse communities together? Or reductionist to assume gender experience is the key connecting factor between these individuals (and not race, or class, or ....)? Second, it's about negotiating the instances of inclusion and exclusion that emerge as a result of differing levels of awareness and knowledge around these varied philosophies and ways of identifying. This is the crux of why we've called it Women's Night for so long. While in practice our "women's night" is attended by trans-women, cis-women, femmes, masculine-identified genderqueers, tombois, etc etc, we have continued to call it women's night to make sure that people who aren't familiar with the world of post-modern gender identity know they are welcome, and cis-men know easily and clearly that it is not for them. I guess, to make it legible to mainstream communities, while still welcoming to non-mainstream communities. Meanwhile, we've also had interest from femme-identified cis-men and trans men in having services for masculine-presenting folks or folks who are presumed masculine (which again, is on a really broad spectrum). We're in convo with folks about their needs and wants, but it would also be great to have input from other shops. Where I'm really seeking is input about how your shops are drawing the lines around participation in nights for marginalized communities (including communities bonded around race, ethnicity, ability, etc) and/or how to meld diverse communities in appropriate and supportive ways. I know that Plan B has Ladies, Trans, and Sissies Night, and BICAS has Women, Trans, and Femme night. Where are folks at with their organizing process around this? What are other shops doing? You are all so great. Lauren

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members and sign up database software
by Jesse Cooper 23 Sep '15

23 Sep '15

Hey Folks! So at Our Community Bikes in Vancouver, we're thinking it's time to set up a proper sign in / sign out system, combined with a membership and volunteer database. Ideally we would like to know what software is out there that can track people coming in and using our space, a simple laptop or desktop kiosk where folks can type in info, and it would enter our database. Also to serve as a database that members can register into, and again wherein volunteers can sign up, and log their hours, and tasks accomplished. sooo.. any ideas? Jesse Cooper

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Re: [TheThinkTank] Bike value
by Sam Haraldson 19 Jun '15

19 Jun '15

> We'd like to know how everyone assigns value to donated bikes? The Bozeman Bike Kitchen gives all bikes a minimum value of $50. These are available for free to anyone with one of the vouchers we provide to our social partners. Bikes with higher re-sale value are priced according to the market and sold to the general public to cover our overhead. Any of our bikes can also be traded in exchange for hours volunteered in our earn-a-bike program. - Sam -- http://bozemanbikekitchen.org ____________________________________ The ThinkTank mailing List <a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o…">Unsubscribe from this list</a>

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Re: [TheThinkTank] Portable Bike Co-op
by recyclebicycle＠verizon.net 21 Apr '15

21 Apr '15

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Re: [TheThinkTank] $$$
by Joshua Goran 11 Mar '15

11 Mar '15

We charge for our Shop Classes, which are open to the public/individuals, more info here: http://tinyurl.com/lhr2zej ...and we also charge for groups who hire us - those programs are usually customized for the partner organization and typically are for kids programming. Our base rate for private groups is *$100/hour* for most all of our programming, be it school presentations or what we call "Fixathons". There's some more info here under "For Organizations": http://tinyurl.com/n5sfuqn Most commonly these are programs that are organized with another organization such as what we call CDCs (Community Development Org) around here, schools, neighborhood groups, and sometimes corporate entities for things like teambuilding exercises. We don't explicitly promote our pricing as sliding scale, but we are sometimes flexible for organizations that we value as partners who may not be able to pay the full standard rate, sometimes by having the org's staff or volunteers spend some time volunteering for us. These sorts of programs comprised brought in about $15k for us last year, factoring in that we comp'd about $3500 worth of fees for orgs who couldn't pay our full rate. This is about 10% of our gross income, though these programs take a lot of time to organize and I'd like to see us streamline and standardize our programs more to make them easier to promote, easier to organize, easier to train volunteers for, more profitable, and to give us the capacity to do more of them! Hope this helps! ---------- *Joshua GoranAdministrator, Ohio City Bicycle Co-op* 1840 Columbus Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44113 216 830 2667 OhioCityCycles.org <http://ohiocitycycles.org/> ____________________________________ The ThinkTank mailing List <a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o…">Unsubscribe from this list</a>

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Re: [TheThinkTank] What level of repairs at Farmers Market
by christopher＠holisticcycles.com 28 Feb '15

28 Feb '15

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Re: [TheThinkTank] What level of repairs at Farmers Market
by christopher＠holisticcycles.com 27 Feb '15

27 Feb '15

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Bike value
by Justin Smith 26 Feb '15

26 Feb '15

We'd like to know how everyone assigns value to donated bikes? Do you assess each bike to estimate its individual value, or do you assign some sort of average value, or something else altogether? Thanks, -- Justin Smith Bike Erie www.bikeerie.org [1] (814) 580-9108 Follow us on Facebook [2] & Twitter [3]! Links: ------ [1] http://www.bikeerie.org/ [2] http://box809.bluehost.com/facebook.com/BikeErie [3] http://box809.bluehost.com/twitter.com/BikeErie ____________________________________ The ThinkTank mailing List <a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o…">Unsubscribe from this list</a>

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