We got the city of Boulder to subsidize locks, lights, racks, and a small tool/set for each of our Youth EAB students. The locks are the 4 tumbler number kind that you can "program" with your own combination, so the kids won't forget. One issue we had early on was someone opened her lock to lock up her bike, and bumped one of the tumblers, and couldn't get it to lock. she didn't know what to do, so she left it unlocked. Then it got taken. (We now walk the kids through the process of locking and unlocking and locking again their locks. It's almost as important to me to explain that the locks won'tclose if the combination is wrong, just as it won't open...

Anyway, we've also encountered the older sibling/evil evil bike thief takes/breaks an EAB'ers bike...we're still working on a solution.

My thought is that anyone should be able to earn as many bikes as they want, with one caveat. With each bike that they earn, the hours they need to put in go up. For example, in the normal program, students go through 12-16 hours of work before they earn a (first) bike of their own. With my proposal, if someone wants to come in and earn a second bike, it would take 20-24 hours, or some appropriate amount. The goal would be for them to have the option to do it, but make it silly enough (wanna earn 5 bikes? work 200 hours...etc) that it's not worth it. I realize there are some other issues--what if someone comes in and wants to earn 5 bikes, no matter how many hours it takes?--but i don't like the idea of limiting people to one bike...
This way, while students have more invested in the second, third, etc, bikes they've earned, which hopefully encourages them to take better care of their bike/security, it also offers them the opportunity to get another bike should the first one get stolen, run over by mom/dad, etc.




On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 1:37 PM, rachael spiewak <rachael@sopobikes.org> wrote:
We've been running into this with the younger folks at the bike shop, and we have to be firm about our earn one bike and one bike only policy.  They're allowed to trade in their bike for a different one only if the one they're turning in is in good condition, and we regularly have chats about why our policy is what it is.  We also chat about how not to get your bike stolen.  It's hard when older siblings are the ones taking the bikes away from the kids who come up to the shop and otherwise abide by what we have to offer, so we do our best to be understanding.  The most we can do is create a system of accountability that makes sense for us, stick to our rules for the good of the entire shop community, and be understanding about extenuating circumstances. 

When we can find deals on locks, we buy a few and distribute them to folks who express the need for one.  That seems to work for some people.  The younger folks tend to lose keys, so combo locks work best for them.  I try to keep a list of their lock combinations and spare keys to help them out when things get lost or forgotten.

If folks don't trade cash for bikes, are they doing anything to create a sense of investment or ownership in the bikes?

-r



On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 3:24 PM, <plan_9@riseup.net> wrote:
We at the FM Community Bicycle Workshop have had a good,(read: busy,
chaotic, overwhelming) first spring openand have run into a few
unexpected situations regarding stolen bikes. We have a one bike a
year limit policy and have had individuals get bikes from us, then
come back the next week saying theirs was stolen and they want to get
another one. Some of these were pretty decent, modern bikes (trek
4300, Giant Cyprus, Diamondback BMX) and we don't want to suspect the
worst, that these bikes were pawned or sold for profit rather than
ridden, but we also don't want to open ourselves up to exploitation
either. We have put in place  a policy that if you bring us a copy of
your police report you are eligible for earning another bike, assuming
that folks wouldn't file a false police report. We don't live in an
area that has high bike theft rates, except for "bike hopping" where
people just grab a bike that isn't being used and leave it wherever
they end up. Basically, crime of opportunity rather than intent. The
bigger issue here is that we are getting folks bikes who can't
normally afford one, but not giving them the means to secure it. We
are interested in getting locks to give out to people who get bikes
from us through our referral system but are debating which is the best
solution. One idea would be to buy cheap cable locks in bulk. Another
idea we have had is a much more DIY approach: Get a roll of beefy
hardware store chain and a padlock and call it good. Has anyone run
into this? Thoughts?
-Andy FMCBW

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