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by Sarah Green 02 Jun '10

02 Jun '10

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Working on expensive bikes in your shop.
by Brian 28 May '10

28 May '10

Hi again. Thanks for the replies to the previous thread, hopefully people found the responses useful. Selling expensive bikes wasn't my question though, perhaps I left my question too open ended. Retry: If a customer walks into your shop with a $5k carbon fiber road bike and wants help doing xxx. Do you have any shop guidelines on what is "too risky" in terms of possible damage to the bike? Perhaps it depends if there is a professional mechanic in the shop at the time, etc... Perhaps you don't care what people do and it's all covered under "we are not responsible"? We've debated it among ourselves at SLO Bike Kitchen. Part of our thought is that it's their bike, we are just there to help. The opposite argument is that they expect us to know everything, and it's sometimes/usually hard to keep track of every step someone does, which may result in them doing something unfortunate while unsupervised. In our case, we are 100% DYI w/us to help and we have no professional service side to the shop. We are also 100% volunteer. Thanks! Brian SLO Bike Kitchen www.slobikekitchen.org

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Expensive bikes in your shop.
by Brian 27 May '10

27 May '10

Hi everybody. What policies do you have or not have concerning work/help with expensive equipment. For example, what are the scenarios in your shop when a full carbon Campy Record bike walks in the door? I could be more specific with questions, but perhaps you could just comment on what discussions you've had among your organizations. Thanks! Brian SLO Bike Kitchen Co-Founder www.slobikekitchen.org

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French DIY bike collective launches website
by Cascadian Fox 27 May '10

27 May '10

Hello, Most of it is pictures (go to the photo section) : http://ateliervelo.free.fr/index.php?id=5 We are in Lyon France in a huge hanger. We make a lot of DIY HPVs from almost 100 percent recycled trash bikes. bikes, fox

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Sorting Bicycles
by Ainsley Naylor 27 May '10

27 May '10

hey all, here is a not-so-hypothetical question. If you had to sort a lot of bicycles (I mean a lot, like a few thousand) how would you do it? The purpose would be to sort them in a user-friendly way, so that in the future you could find the bikes you need (i.e. bikes for a youth program, bikes to sell, bikes to strip) as easily as possible. The bikes will be staying in the same location for the most part which calls for a good sort and store method, although dispersal of the bikes to other spaces will also be easier if we sort them properly. The best suggestion so far is to sort them by wheel size but these bikes don't have their wheels attached - what a headache - so I'm looking for other suggestions. Thanks! Ainsley and the FUCKIGOR bicycle collective :)

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Re: [TheThinkTank] Thethinktank Digest, Vol 45, Issue 17
by B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop 26 May '10

26 May '10

After doing 200+ safety checks at a police bike auction last weekend, Sarah and I here at B!KE developed a pretty finely tuned sense of bike triage :) (which, of course, will be no match for yours after this project!) While a positive/negative result in any of these situations doesn't necessarily mean the bike is toast, it's a good way to get a quick sense of how much work is needed - and possible to teach a volunteer who don't have strong repair skills. + is the frame damaged? + try to twist the stem with the F wheel between yer legs. While a twistable stem may just be loose, I'm always amazed at how many quill wedges have been stripped on cheaper bikes. + check the F + R hubs (if present) for knock + check the headset for loose/tight + check BB for knock + would it be hypothetically possible to turn the wheel with a chain? + would it be hypothetically possible to stop the bike with at least one brake (while gently coasting uphill...?) + general state of housing, cable, tires (if any). This is just what my morning brain produces, and is more or less what we were doing in the parade of sad overvalued bicycles coming out of the police auction. I think the general idea would be to make a checklist and, if you're feeling particularly organized, including details like frame type, size and colour has the beginnings of a most awesome database, then add up the number of answers one way or another to 'triage' the bike. I wouldn't get too caught up in trying to sort by wheel size, but if that is what makes sense to you, you could do too things: 1) Guess. most 99% of older steel road bikes 'round these parts are going to be 27 x 1 1/4, older cruisers will be 26 x 1 3/8, mountain bikes with be 26 x [decimal], etc. 2) You could try measuring from centre of dropouts to centre of brake pads. This should (hypothetically) be half the ISO bead seat diameter number listed on the side of of the tire. I.e., 27 x 1 1/4 = 630mm = 315mm from c-dropout to c-brake pad (obviously allow for some margin of error) 700c = 622mm = 311mm and so on. The ones I would most focus on would be the older looking cruisers with their impossibly non-standard tire sizes! Good luck! Clifford McCarten B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop 400 Wolfe St, Peterborough ON (705) 748-6681 http://www.communitybikeshop.org > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 20:19:23 -0400 > From: Ainsley Naylor <needleandthread(a)gmail.com> > To: The Think Tank <thethinktank(a)bikecollectives.org> > Subject: [TheThinkTank] Sorting Bicycles > Message-ID: > <AANLkTingSliDf0PTNjkVMesgfI20WFmNeajnKidvnOAU(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > hey all, here is a not-so-hypothetical question. If you had to sort a lot of > bicycles (I mean a lot, like a few thousand) how would you do it? The > purpose would be to sort them in a user-friendly way, so that in the future > you could find the bikes you need (i.e. bikes for a youth program, bikes to > sell, bikes to strip) as easily as possible. The bikes will be staying in > the same location for the most part which calls for a good sort and store > method, although dispersal of the bikes to other spaces will also be easier > if we sort them properly. > > The best suggestion so far is to sort them by wheel size but these bikes > don't have their wheels attached - what a headache - so I'm looking for > other suggestions. > > Thanks! > Ainsley and the FUCKIGOR bicycle collective > :) >

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buenos aires
by Jodie Banks 24 May '10

24 May '10

Does anyone know of a volunteer bicycle shop or coop in Buenos Aires? The internet has not turned up much. Thanks! Jodie Off the Chain Bicycles, Anchorage, AK

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Job Opening in Los Angeles: "Bike Wrangler", Abandoned/Used Bike Recovering
by Ramon Martinez 22 May '10

22 May '10

Hey Everyone, Ramon Martinez here from LA's new County Cycling Collaborative (The CCC) made up of local bike collectives including the Bicycle Kitchen, The Bike Oven, The Bikerowave and the Valley Bikery (along with two local bike advocacy and education organizations, the LA County Bike Coalition and C.I.C.L.E.). We all got together to write a grant for a working position known as the Bike Wrangler, that would scour the County's universities, police departments, Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other sources to find used bikes, recover them, and redistribute them. Now that the money has been awarded to us, we're looking to hire the position. Check out more details and find a job description at the Bike Coalition's blog<http://lacbc.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/job-opening-la-county-cycling-collabo…>. Send a resume and cover letter to bikewrangler(a)la-bike.org by June 7th at 5pm and we look forward to seeing you in LA. Pass the word on and keep rocking out in the big bike world. Ramon Martinez Board Member, Bicycle Kitchen Advocacy & Outreach Coordinator, LA County Bike Coalition

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A day in the life of Community cycles
by Rich Points 21 May '10

21 May '10

http://vimeo.com/11860004 -- Rich Points Community Cycles Executive Director http://CommunityCycles.org Rich(a)CommunityCycles.org 720-565-6019 (W) 303-589-0597 (C) Donate your old car to Community Cycles http://communitycycles.org/get-involved/donatecar.html Volunteer orientations are held 6p.m. on the 4th Tuesday of each month.

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Bike 2 Bike! Bike! from Capital Region of NY.
by andrew lynn 19 May '10

19 May '10

If anyone out there in the capital region or the Northeast US is interested in participating in a bicycle caravan to Bike!Bike! International, please get in touch, so we can coordinate with you. This is an unsupported approximate 6-day ride each way. We will be cooking our own food and camping at free areas and/or as inexpensively as possible. What supplies to bring and daily routes will be coordinated as things come together in June & July. Much of the route will be on the Erie Canal bike trail, making it mostly flat and scenic. For people interested in only a two-day ride, there will be a send-off brigade riding with us the first day, camping the first night and coming back the following day. Here's a tentative schedule: Sat. August 7 - leave in the AM Arrive in Toronto by Aug. 13 or 14. Monday August 16 - leave Toronto Arrive back in Capital Region around 8/21-22 --- About Bike!Bike!: B!B! is an amazing gathering of community bike projects in its 7th year of existence. It will be a meeting of 2-300 DIY bicycle visionaries from around the US and Canada. This years gathering is being hosted by the Bike Pirates of Toronto, so, if you are going, you will need a passport or enhanced drivers license to cross the border. More info on the gathering here: http://bikebike.org email Andrew at anyone(a)breathingplanet.net to express interest in the ride.

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