Community Bike folk,<br>I&#39;m trying to settle on a topic for a masters thesis and I&#39;m interested in doing research into the organizational, legal and funding structures of community bike shops. I know that at bikebike minneapolis there was a session called &quot;Plan Voltron&quot; about creating a &quot;cooperative of cooperatives&quot; and some of the folks from our bike shop that made it to toronto  mentioned this was also a topic of conversation this year. My first thought is that a qualitative and quantitative overview or survey of community bike shops would give a solid base for further work on this idea by identifying needs, wants, strengths, characteristics, etc. that would be useful to organizing linkages between shops. <br>
My main focus of study so far has been the &quot;worker centers&quot; movement, which seem to parallel community bike shops in some interesting ways, such as being relatively new, decentralized, and fast growing. I think this (<a href="http://smlr.rutgers.edu/Unions/FineWorker.pdf">http://smlr.rutgers.edu/Unions/FineWorker.pdf</a>) study that was done of workercenters would serve as a good model for one of community bike shops since it&#39;s central aim is to be useful for further movement building. So, now to the questions:<br>
1. Does anyone know of any research done on community bike shops, academic or otherwise?<br>2. Would you see this as potentially useful information? Useful enough to participate in a survey of your shop?<br>3. If so, what kinds of things would you like to see research on?<br>
<br>I would be doing this using both traditional research methods as well as more &quot;strategic investigation&quot; techniques, meaning that perspective would be from within the movement as a participant and their would be a specific strategic &quot;usefulness&quot; for the end result. <br>
<br>Wish I could have been at bikebike to pitch this idea personally, but I know sara talked to a few folks about it. <br><br>Thanks,<br>Andrew <br>FM Community Bicycle Workshop<br><br>