Bike Purchases with Sweat Equity
At Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop in Lexington, KY, our bike purchase policy is: People without the financial means can purchase a bike that is priced < $100 totally on credit that day with the verbal agreement that they return to shop and volunteer enough to pay their debt off. Our sweat equity policy pays folks $8 / hour in shop credit. After a review of our sweat equity accounts that we keep for each customer, we discovered that over 50% of the folks who purchased a 100% sweat equity bike never came back after that initial visit/bike purchase. Our mission is to provide better acccess to better bicycles used for transportation and to enable folks to perform their own maintenance. While our current policy is providing bikes to people, we are questioning whether we are giving folks a handout rather than a hand-up.
We would like to hear how some of you handle sweat equity bike purchases. More specifically adult purchases as we do not have a huge kid market.
Allen Kirkwood Broke Spoke
At Community Cycles if you want a bike you need to go through the Earn-A-Bike program http://CommunityCycles.org/eab
Participants learn bike mechanics while supporting the shop and get a bike in the end. It hold them accountable, serves the shop and they get a bike. Win! Win! Win!
Ride On!
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 7:29 AM, Edward Kirkwood kirkwoodea@yahoo.comwrote:
At Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop in Lexington, KY, our bike purchase policy is: People without the financial means can purchase a bike that is priced < $100 totally on credit that day with the verbal agreement that they return to shop and volunteer enough to pay their debt off. Our sweat equity policy pays folks $8 / hour in shop credit. After a review of our sweat equity accounts that we keep for each customer, we discovered that over 50% of the folks who purchased a 100% sweat equity bike never came back after that initial visit/bike purchase. Our mission is to provide better acccess to better bicycles used for transportation and to enable folks to perform their own maintenance. While our current policy is providing bikes to people, we are questioning whether we are giving folks a handout rather than a hand-up.
We would like to hear how some of you handle sweat equity bike purchases. More specifically adult purchases as we do not have a huge kid market.
Allen Kirkwood Broke Spoke
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We encourage people without means to engage in Learn & Earn (our adult earn a bike), which requires 3 free classes that are part instruction and part helping in the shop, and then they begin a build or refurbishing project. we also try to keep a few $5 bikes (low end mt. bikes, dept. store 3-10 speeds) on the adoption rack.
$100 is also our high-end donation for an adoption, unless the bike is super vintage or fancy.
Andrew Troy Bike Rescue
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Edward Kirkwood kirkwoodea@yahoo.comwrote:
At Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop in Lexington, KY, our bike purchase policy is: People without the financial means can purchase a bike that is priced < $100 totally on credit that day with the verbal agreement that they return to shop and volunteer enough to pay their debt off. Our sweat equity policy pays folks $8 / hour in shop credit. After a review of our sweat equity accounts that we keep for each customer, we discovered that over 50% of the folks who purchased a 100% sweat equity bike never came back after that initial visit/bike purchase. Our mission is to provide better acccess to better bicycles used for transportation and to enable folks to perform their own maintenance. While our current policy is providing bikes to people, we are questioning whether we are giving folks a handout rather than a hand-up.
We would like to hear how some of you handle sweat equity bike purchases. More specifically adult purchases as we do not have a huge kid market.
Allen Kirkwood Broke Spoke
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe, send a blank email to TheThinkTank-leave@bikecollectives.org To manage your subscription, plase visit:
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That matches our experience. Our theory is that people pay with sweat equity up front, $5/hour, which also helps them build their skills for maintaining their own bikes. We make occasional exceptions but understand that these are mostly going to end up as gifts, not loans. We also have a lay-away policy. Our best results are with people who genuninely enjoy the combination of mechanics and community -- people with whom we build real relationships.
Good luck!
nozomi
On Wednesday, May 22, 2013, Edward Kirkwood wrote:
At Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop in Lexington, KY, our bike purchase policy is: People without the financial means can purchase a bike that is priced < $100 totally on credit that day with the verbal agreement that they return to shop and volunteer enough to pay their debt off. Our sweat equity policy pays folks $8 / hour in shop credit. After a review of our sweat equity accounts that we keep for each customer, we discovered that over 50% of the folks who purchased a 100% sweat equity bike never came back after that initial visit/bike purchase. Our mission is to provide better acccess to better bicycles used for transportation and to enable folks to perform their own maintenance. While our current policy is providing bikes to people, we are questioning whether we are giving folks a handout rather than a hand-up.
We would like to hear how some of you handle sweat equity bike purchases. More specifically adult purchases as we do not have a huge kid market.
Allen Kirkwood Broke Spoke
Our shop - Cycle Transitions in Cobourg, Ontario - has the recipient do 5 hours of volunteer time in the shop first, then they can pick out a bike from our stock of older donated ones. They then do the work to fix the bike up, using used parts where needed.
Rick Nonnekes Cycle Transitions
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Edward Kirkwood kirkwoodea@yahoo.comwrote:
At Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop in Lexington, KY, our bike purchase policy is: People without the financial means can purchase a bike that is priced < $100 totally on credit that day with the verbal agreement that they return to shop and volunteer enough to pay their debt off. Our sweat equity policy pays folks $8 / hour in shop credit. After a review of our sweat equity accounts that we keep for each customer, we discovered that over 50% of the folks who purchased a 100% sweat equity bike never came back after that initial visit/bike purchase. Our mission is to provide better acccess to better bicycles used for transportation and to enable folks to perform their own maintenance. While our current policy is providing bikes to people, we are questioning whether we are giving folks a handout rather than a hand-up.
We would like to hear how some of you handle sweat equity bike purchases. More specifically adult purchases as we do not have a huge kid market.
Allen Kirkwood Broke Spoke
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe, send a blank email to TheThinkTank-leave@bikecollectives.org To manage your subscription, plase visit:
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Very simple, no bike till sweat payment. They can use a safe single speed sixties coaster brake bike if transportation is an issue. Something that painted as a marked bike. We don't have that problem yet since we teach purpose kids how to build their own bike for free www.brockvillebikeministry.com Eric Montgomery On May 22, 2013 9:29 AM, "Edward Kirkwood" kirkwoodea@yahoo.com wrote:
At Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop in Lexington, KY, our bike purchase policy is: People without the financial means can purchase a bike that is priced < $100 totally on credit that day with the verbal agreement that they return to shop and volunteer enough to pay their debt off. Our sweat equity policy pays folks $8 / hour in shop credit. After a review of our sweat equity accounts that we keep for each customer, we discovered that over 50% of the folks who purchased a 100% sweat equity bike never came back after that initial visit/bike purchase. Our mission is to provide better acccess to better bicycles used for transportation and to enable folks to perform their own maintenance. While our current policy is providing bikes to people, we are questioning whether we are giving folks a handout rather than a hand-up.
We would like to hear how some of you handle sweat equity bike purchases. More specifically adult purchases as we do not have a huge kid market.
Allen Kirkwood Broke Spoke
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe, send a blank email to TheThinkTank-leave@bikecollectives.org To manage your subscription, plase visit:
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participants (6)
-
Andrew L -
director -
Edward Kirkwood -
Eric Montgomery -
Nozomi Ikuta -
Rick Nonnekes