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 Hi, Everyone.

 I love reading everyone's posts.

 Thanks to the people who have written to me about creating a

good bike plan for the Detroit-Windsor region.

 This past weekend, I was talking with some people. People we

know were attending the UN Indigenous People's climate change meeting in New York, and we were talking about some things.

  My friends and I were talking about climate change, this time

in the context of the aboriginal communities that these friends of mine come from. It was a long and interesting conversation.

  For a little part of it, I talked about bikes, and about how

important my bike was to me in Detroit and about how my bike shapes my world view and my thoughts about community planning, etc.

  They all drive trucks, these friends of mine, even the ones

from the city, and they think I'm a little nuts for riding my bike everywhere, but they could also see an increased potential for bikes in some of their communities.

   In some of their communities, bikes are not so practical. In

others, they could be made into a more functional option for day-to- day practical use, if there was an infrastructure to support them- a place to get bikes, a place to go to repair them, etc.

   We wondered about a "Bike Shop in a Box"-- could you get a

big rubbermaid tub and put a whole bike shop into it? (Maybe two tubs plus a stand?) Could you make such a thing that would be easy to ship North or into the B.C. interior, by train or plane etc.?

    Do the people from "Bikes Not Bombs" know how to do this--

have some of you done this before? Is there a good way of doing this already known?

    What should go into the box, and how could we make this

economical-- is there an economy of scale-- how many Boxed Shops would you need to create to get a good deal on the tools, do you think? Would suppliers be interested in creating a 'Shop in Box' as a product to offer through their catalogue, even?

     We're just thinking about the feasibility of this right

now. For lots of reasons, it might be a dumb or unworkable idea, but one worth checking out. If any of you have done this, or if you know what the best things to put into the box are, please e-mail me.

                                     Sasha

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:56:20 -0400 "Urban Bike Project Wilmington, DE" urbanbikeproject@gmail.com wrote:

"we still have the Bike Against! stencil and about ten different colors of spray paint..."

Rafael, is that why you changed your name? I can only imagine the positive message this has spread in Fort Collins...

Jennifer,

I think you want a name that instantly gives people a snapshot of what you do. Mike's comment rings pretty true. Often people will call

or email about donating bikes and then ask what it is exactly that we

do. If you do bikes and art call it something with bikes and art and you'll be set. The Bike Gallery or something innocent. BICAS' name is pretty cool and explanatory.

Once you pick it, stick with it. Like Rafael said, your shops actions/quality are more important than the name.

Brian

On 4/28/08, bike against bikeagainst@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hey Jennifer and all, Rafael from Fort Collins,CO here...

I agree with Rachel, keep it simple...

I believe the name does not make the project, the PROJECT makes

the name,

...

just like band names, as long as the music is good people will

dig the

...

name...

In our case, for the first four years our project was known as

the Bike

...

Against ! collective or Co-op and due to our current situation

we are now

...

just called The Fort Collins Bike Co-op... yeah,is not radical

but it

...

doesn't have to be. We still have the same ideals and philosophy

that gave

...

birth to the organization and again, the quality of your work is

ALL that

...

matters in the end.

By changing our name we were able to have access to a lot more

resources

...

and therefore help a lot more people.

As for the militant riders out there,who believe that riding a

bicycle as

...

main or ONLY means of transportation is also an act of political

expression

...

and resistance,we still have the Bike Against! stencil and about

ten

...

different colors of spray paint...

Also there's less risk that the name will be already taken.

-- Rafael Cletero Project Coordinator Fort Collins Bicycle Co-op ph (970) 484 38 04 www.fcbikecoop.org _______________________________________________ Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-

bikecollectives.org

...

-- Urban Bike Project of Wilmington 1908 N. Market Street (entrance is in the parking lot behind the building) Wilmington, DE 19801

Hours: Thursday 6:30-9:00 Saturday 1:00-4:00

Visit us online at http://urbanbikeproject.org _______________________________________________ Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank- bikecollectives.org