Hey all,
Maybe there's been another thread on this in the past, but I'll go ahead anyways. Fairly regularly we get e-mails from people who are moving to / staying in town for a while about getting a bike, and I had the thought that sometimes a nice way to deal with this would be to honor earn-a-bike volunteer hours worked at the other programs out there, particularly as transporation is definately a first priority when moving some place new, and in our program (being volunteer run and only open 1-2 days a week) it can take a couple weeks to complete the earn-a-bike. What do other peeps think about this? A good idea, or too much work dropping other programs a line to say what's what?
peace, Colin - shop coordinator, DBC.
sounds cool.a lot of the folks that are most likely to use such a program are the dear traveling punk kids amongst us, right? (just in the sense of moving frequently and being in the know about connections b/t community bike projects...). I've been really impressed with BICAS's rental bike program for some of those needs: we have a fleet of I dunno, 10 bikes, mostly beater/cruisers, that we rent for $5/day or $25/week. We credit at $8/hr. for worktrade, so about a half hour gets you rolling. Lots of folks use this service while they are working on build-a-bike hours. Plus, it is an easy option when someone's bike is in pieces on the floor at closing time (and 'home' is too far to walk). And it seems like we make a fair amount of dough on the whole thing too. We recently welded big steel "bicas rental bike" signs into the main triangle on all of them, and welded chain with a padlock to the seattube (all the locks have the same key, so checkout is streamlined, and we haven't lost one bike since we did this). This doesn't need to replace your excellent idea about sharing worktrade hours b/t shops, but it might offset some of your needs. The only drawback is that they take up a bit of space, and need tune-ups once in a while. best, kyle
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Durham Bike Co-op durhambikecoop@gmail.com wrote:
Hey all,
Maybe there's been another thread on this in the past, but I'll go ahead anyways. Fairly regularly we get e-mails from people who are moving to / staying in town for a while about getting a bike, and I had the thought that sometimes a nice way to deal with this would be to honor earn-a-bike volunteer hours worked at the other programs out there, particularly as transporation is definately a first priority when moving some place new, and in our program (being volunteer run and only open 1-2 days a week) it can take a couple weeks to complete the earn-a-bike. What do other peeps think about this? A good idea, or too much work dropping other programs a line to say what's what?
peace, Colin - shop coordinator, DBC.
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kyle mckinley