selling bikes, making bikes for yourself?
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our bikes that we refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or regular costs; the city gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our money on spare parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program so youth can build up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and then after fifteen hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike for themselves. Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of work can basically just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid anything at this point. Generally, at this point, we just sell our refurbished bikes in one way or another. Do other shops do this? Also, presumably, volunteers could, after working fifteen hours, refurbish bikes for themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or something. Do other coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing bikes for yourself, one after the other, and then selling them for your own profit? Or perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and then you have to give a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?
Free rent from the city is exactly what I am trying to score, to set up a shop in Monterey, CA.
How did you do it?
Thanks, Nathan
--- Paul Park pauljosephpark@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our bikes that we refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or regular costs; the city gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our money on spare parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program so youth can build up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and then after fifteen hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike for themselves. Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of work can basically just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid anything at this point. Generally, at this point, we just sell our refurbished bikes in one way or another. Do other shops do this? Also, presumably, volunteers could, after working fifteen hours, refurbish bikes for themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or something. Do other coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing bikes for yourself, one after the other, and then selling them for your own profit? Or perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and then you have to give a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?
-- PJ Park http://www.biketobrazil.blogspot.com http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulJosephPark
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
____________________________________________________________________________________
Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/
Hi Everyone,
The Bike Church does sells bikes that are surplus to the needs of our
youth program, which raises money for the agency as a whole. We have
had this situation where people have been using the place as a workshop
for their own entrepreneurship projects. On the whole Bike Church
members have found this abhorrent and greatly discouraged it. On the
other hand, not many people seem to have much of a problem with selling
their own bikes in our space! I think it might be that what looks
valuable to most of our volunteers is the time workshop space rather
than the "customer base." There are gradations of what could happen.
For instance, is it OK for someone to sell a bike on Craig's list and
then have the person pick it up from a volunteer or patron at Bike
Church? Personally I'm fine with a consignment deal as long as it's
worked out in advance because it has the potential to bring more people
in here.
Regards,
Andy
Paul Park wrote:
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our bikes that we refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or regular costs; the city gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our money on spare parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program so youth can build up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and then after fifteen hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike for themselves. Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of work can basically just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid anything at this point.
Generally, at this point, we just sell our refurbished bikes in one way or another. Do other shops do this? Also, presumably, volunteers could, after working fifteen hours, refurbish bikes for themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or something. Do other coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing bikes for yourself, one after the other, and then selling them for your own profit? Or perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and then you have to give a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?-- PJ Park http://www.biketobrazil.blogspot.com http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulJosephPark
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
At Community Cycles in Boulder bike sales provide nearly two thirds of our total income. The price averages $80-100 per bike but we do get plenty of bikes outside that range as well.
For the most part we do not sell or distribute Huffy, Magna, Next, Murray and other department store toy bikes. This is a perk of living in city with an affluent avid cycling population. However we gladly accept them as donations as they are a perfect tool to start the EAB program. We have EABers strip them down for parts to Africa, artists and scrap metal.
How do other groups deal with department store bikes?
As far as sales go providing affordable reliable bikes is part of our mission as well. One of the biggest barriors to bike comuting is not being able to carry stuff. We install cargo racks, bottle cages and bells on the majority of bikes that go into the showroom. We also have new locks for sale. When someone buys a bike we give them a Boulder bike map and talk a bit about choosing routes and commuting by bike.
The point is we strive to introduce practical rather than recreational bikes into the community.
When we're tight on cash and have bikes in the showroom we'll post some things on craigslist. The last post I did was very generic with the heading "Commuter Style Bikes $60-$120" you can see the post here http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/410049907.html We sold 5 bikes from this free ad that day. And we raised awareness about the shop. This might be a good tool for the Bike Farm which is just starting.
Peace Rich
Paul Park wrote:
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our bikes that we refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or regular costs; the city gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our money on spare parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program so youth can build up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and then after fifteen hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike for themselves. Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of work can basically just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid anything at this point.
Generally, at this point, we just sell our refurbished bikes in one way or another. Do other shops do this? Also, presumably, volunteers could, after working fifteen hours, refurbish bikes for themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or something. Do other coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing bikes for yourself, one after the other, and then selling them for your own profit? Or perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and then you have to give a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?-- PJ Park http://www.biketobrazil.blogspot.com http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulJosephPark
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
At Yellow Bike in Austin, it's the same. We sell used bike frames, parts, some basic new parts/supplies and refurbished bikes. It keeps us self-sufficient as we are not city, state or federally funded. We are a 501c3.
That said, the city does provide us with free space in one of it's unused properties. This is a great option as most cities have unused or transitionary city building ready for use. Of course there are lots of non-profits clamoring for this kind of thing, so how did we get the hookup?
- Originally we provided a loan bike service for the city in return for
space. We maintained a small fleet of bikes for the city at a central location for city employees to use on lunch or for travel between city building. The city of Austin has a commitment to green energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions so that fits into their scheme of things.
- The Public works department of the City of Austin has a bicycle and
pedestrian program and master plan. Our community bicycle project fulfills certain aspects of this plan at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost them. they also like us. Hence we get free shop space.
As for your crappy wal mart type bikes, we do not sell them or waste time refurbishing them for resale. Part of our mission is landfill diversion and we consider recycling a final option, so we create "Yellow Bikes". We get them running, single speed them by stripping of the gear levers and leaving the derailers in place, paint them yellow, sticker them "free to ride, but not to keep" and release them into the world, normally at some kind of partner event. it's good pr, the bikes get used as downtown transportation, then disappear, but at least they get used and we're not looking to run a free program such as in amsterdam or copenhagen.
This is an interesting article that appeared in adbusters a while back talking about how self-sufficiency for radical projects is more important than relying on private/state grant funding. may or may not apply to all of you but it's an interesting article...
http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/64/The_Secret_to_Being_as_Radical_as_We_Wa...
Cheers,
Simon / Yellow Bike
Rich Points wrote:
At Community Cycles in Boulder bike sales provide nearly two thirds of our total income. The price averages $80-100 per bike but we do get plenty of bikes outside that range as well.
For the most part we do not sell or distribute Huffy, Magna, Next, Murray and other department store toy bikes. This is a perk of living in city with an affluent avid cycling population. However we gladly accept them as donations as they are a perfect tool to start the EAB program. We have EABers strip them down for parts to Africa, artists and scrap metal.
How do other groups deal with department store bikes?
As far as sales go providing affordable reliable bikes is part of our mission as well. One of the biggest barriors to bike comuting is not being able to carry stuff. We install cargo racks, bottle cages and bells on the majority of bikes that go into the showroom. We also have new locks for sale. When someone buys a bike we give them a Boulder bike map and talk a bit about choosing routes and commuting by bike.
The point is we strive to introduce practical rather than recreational bikes into the community.
When we're tight on cash and have bikes in the showroom we'll post some things on craigslist. The last post I did was very generic with the heading "Commuter Style Bikes $60-$120" you can see the post here http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/410049907.html We sold 5 bikes from this free ad that day. And we raised awareness about the shop.
This might be a good tool for the Bike Farm which is just starting.Peace Rich
Paul Park wrote:
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our bikes that we refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or regular costs; the city gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our money on spare parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program so youth can build up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and then after fifteen hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike for themselves.
Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of work can basically just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid anything at this point. Generally, at this point, we just sell our refurbished bikes in one way or another. Do other shops do this? Also, presumably, volunteers could, after working fifteen hours, refurbish bikes for themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or something. Do other coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing bikes for yourself, one after the other, and then selling them for your own profit? Or perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and then you have to give a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?-- PJ Park http://www.biketobrazil.blogspot.com http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulJosephPark
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
-- Rich Points Community Cycles Director http://CommunityCycles.org Rich@CommunityCycles.org 720-565-6019
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
A couple points from Free Ride (Pittsburgh)...
Bike sales make a large part of our income as well. These are mostly not complete bikes, though. Our pricing structure (which we borrowed from BICAS) is as follows: base price + labor + new parts.
The base price comes from how nice a bike it is, and how much it shows its age (we'll reduce the price if there's lots of rust or chipped paint).
Labor is $10 per hour; this gets added if a trained regular volunteer for the shop works on the bike.
New parts: we pass along the cost of whatever we have to shell out for grip tape, new tires, etc..
So - if someone picks out an "earn-a-bike" project, we charge them the base price with a little taken off for how much work they will have to do. Most of our sales are "earn-a-bikes," not fully repaired bikes. The reason for this is that our open shop hours have gotten really popular, and volunteers have their hands completely full helping others, and therefore never have time to work on bikes for the shop to sell. So- a recommendation I would make is that if stocking ready-to-go bikes is important to your shop, schedule regular times that are "volunteer-only" where people can't work on their earn-a-bike projects. Our focus shifted to earn-a-bikes without us really making a conscious decision, just because we got so busy.
This pricing structure also allows us to have commission system, whereby once people complete some training, they can build bikes and get paid hourly for their labor. If you do commission based on a straight percentage of the cost of the bike, you get cherry-picking; people claim the nicest bikes that need the least work as "their" commission project. All that said- can't say we use the commission system a whole lot now, but once we start our "volunteer-only" night and advertise it a bit, I think it will be a useful tool.
Department store bikes - we do accept them. However, a major reason for this is that we have a steel scrap dumpster outside our door, and we view it as better that a destroyed department store bike go there than in in a landfill. We too often have earn-a-bikers strip them as a volunteer project. If they are in good enough condition, we let people pick them as earn-a-bikes, or sell them for cheap.
-Jessica Free Ride! Pittsburgh
--- Simon Z youractionsdefineyou@gmail.com wrote:
At Yellow Bike in Austin, it's the same. We sell used bike frames, parts, some basic new parts/supplies and refurbished bikes. It keeps us self-sufficient as we are not city, state or federally funded. We are a 501c3.
That said, the city does provide us with free space in one of it's unused properties. This is a great option as most cities have unused or transitionary city building ready for use. Of course there are lots of non-profits clamoring for this kind of thing, so how did we get the hookup?
- Originally we provided a loan bike service for
the city in return for space. We maintained a small fleet of bikes for the city at a central location for city employees to use on lunch or for travel between city building. The city of Austin has a commitment to green energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions so that fits into their scheme of things.
- The Public works department of the City of Austin
has a bicycle and pedestrian program and master plan. Our community bicycle project fulfills certain aspects of this plan at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost them. they also like us. Hence we get free shop space.
As for your crappy wal mart type bikes, we do not sell them or waste time refurbishing them for resale. Part of our mission is landfill diversion and we consider recycling a final option, so we create "Yellow Bikes". We get them running, single speed them by stripping of the gear levers and leaving the derailers in place, paint them yellow, sticker them "free to ride, but not to keep" and release them into the world, normally at some kind of partner event. it's good pr, the bikes get used as downtown transportation, then disappear, but at least they get used and we're not looking to run a free program such as in amsterdam or copenhagen.
This is an interesting article that appeared in adbusters a while back talking about how self-sufficiency for radical projects is more important than relying on private/state grant funding. may or may not apply to all of you but it's an interesting article...
http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/64/The_Secret_to_Being_as_Radical_as_We_Wa...
Cheers,
Simon / Yellow Bike
Rich Points wrote:
At Community Cycles in Boulder bike sales provide
nearly two thirds of
our total income. The price averages $80-100 per
bike but we do get
plenty of bikes outside that range as well.
For the most part we do not sell or distribute
Huffy, Magna, Next,
Murray and other department store toy bikes. This
is a perk of living
in city with an affluent avid cycling population.
However we gladly
accept them as donations as they are a perfect
tool to start the EAB
program. We have EABers strip them down for parts
to Africa, artists
and scrap metal.
How do other groups deal with department store
bikes?
As far as sales go providing affordable reliable
bikes is part of our
mission as well. One of the biggest barriors to
bike comuting is not
being able to carry stuff. We install cargo
racks, bottle cages and
bells on the majority of bikes that go into the
showroom. We also
have new locks for sale. When someone buys a bike
we give them a
Boulder bike map and talk a bit about choosing
routes and commuting by
bike.
The point is we strive to introduce practical
rather than recreational
bikes into the community.
When we're tight on cash and have bikes in the
showroom we'll post
some things on craigslist. The last post I did
was very generic with
the heading "Commuter Style Bikes $60-$120" you
can see the post here
We sold 5 bikes
from this free ad that day. And we raised
awareness about the shop.
This might be a good tool for the Bike Farm which
is just starting.
Peace Rich
Paul Park wrote:
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier,
Maryland, a suburb
of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our
bikes that we
refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or
regular costs; the city
gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our
money on spare
parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program
so youth can build
up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and
then after fifteen
hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike
for themselves.
Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of
work can basically
just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid
anything at this
point. Generally, at this point, we just sell
our refurbished bikes
in one way or another. Do other shops do this?
Also, presumably,
volunteers could, after working fifteen hours,
refurbish bikes for
themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or
something. Do other
coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing
bikes for yourself,
one after the other, and then selling them for
your own profit? Or
perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and
then you have to give
a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?
-- PJ Park http://www.biketobrazil.blogspot.com http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulJosephPark
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
-- Rich Points Community Cycles Director http://CommunityCycles.org Rich@CommunityCycles.org 720-565-6019
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
=== message truncated ===> _______________________________________________
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel. http://travel.yahoo.com/
Hey Paul (and Think Tank), Sounds just like what we have been doing here in Montpelier. We haven't had to worry about internet sales yet. Our sales also account for half or more of our income, and we sell whatever our volunteers care to fix up. I believe that any sales of goods are subject to sales tax in any state (they are in VT), and you didn't mention it, so I figured I would, because tax evasion, while arguably awesome, is also potentially catastrophic. Colin Gunn Freeride Montpelier www.freeridemontpelier.org freeridemp@riseup.net
P.S. Paul, I looked at your picture website, and we went to college together!
P.P.S. Everyone, I don't think anyone made it to BikeBike with info about our shop, but I am really glad we made it onto this email list. If you are ever around central VT, please drop by!
P.P.P.S Yes, I think we stole the name from Pittsburgh, but I don't know how. Thanks Free Ride!
Hi all,
At the Mount Rainier Bike Coop in Mount Rainier, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, we are working how to sell our bikes that we refurbish. We really don't have any fixed or regular costs; the city gives us the space (a garage), so we just use our money on spare parts and tools. We have an earn-a-bike program so youth can build up bikes for us, learning mechanic skills, and then after fifteen hours of voluteering, the youths can build a bike for themselves. Volunteers who have already put in 15 hours of work can basically just keep refurbishing bikes. No one gets paid anything at this point. Generally, at this point, we just sell our refurbished bikes in one way or another. Do other shops do this? Also, presumably, volunteers could, after working fifteen hours, refurbish bikes for themselves, and then sell them on craigslist or something. Do other coops have a policy with regards to refurbishing bikes for yourself, one after the other, and then selling them for your own profit? Or perhaps a system where you refurbish a bike and then you have to give a certain percentage of the sale to the coop?
-- PJ Park http://www.biketobrazil.blogspot.com http://www.imagestation.com/members/pjpark http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulJosephPark
This is a good discussion, let's add some of it to this...
http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bike_and_Part_Sales
Hey All, A couple of years ago a friend of ours traveled to Europe and picked up 5 sets of skirt guards. Skirt guards, if you don't know, are made of metal or plastic and cover the rear wheel. So if you're riding with a skirt or dress it doesn't get caught up in the rear spokes.
These are virtually unheard of here in the states. But it would be cool to have them available here in the shop. Does anyone know where to get them?
Carrying this kind of stuff ties in to a larger goal of being known as a shop with an emphasis on bike commuting.
Peace Rich Community Cycles http://CommunityCycles.org Boulder
I had no idea what a skirt guard is and was intrigued, so I looked it up...and found this crafty idea for making your own.
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/quick_easy_bicycle_skirt_guard....
-Jessica
--- Rich Points rich@richpoints.com wrote:
Hey All, A couple of years ago a friend of ours traveled to Europe and picked up 5 sets of skirt guards. Skirt guards, if you don't know, are made of metal or plastic and cover the rear wheel. So if you're riding with a skirt or dress it doesn't get caught up in the rear spokes.
These are virtually unheard of here in the states. But it would be cool to have them available here in the shop. Does anyone know where to get them?
Carrying this kind of stuff ties in to a larger goal of being known as a shop with an emphasis on bike commuting.
Peace Rich Community Cycles http://CommunityCycles.org Boulder
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't let your dream ride pass you by. Make it a reality with Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/index.html
Like the electra amsterdam ( http://bikeportland.org/wp-content/_ElectraAmsterdamClassicGr.JPG)?
Buy one from England http://www.cambridgecyclecompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&...
Make one: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/quick_easy_bicycle_skirt_guard....
On 10/4/07, Rich Points rich@richpoints.com wrote:
Hey All, A couple of years ago a friend of ours traveled to Europe and picked up 5 sets of skirt guards. Skirt guards, if you don't know, are made of metal or plastic and cover the rear wheel. So if you're riding with a skirt or dress it doesn't get caught up in the rear spokes.
These are virtually unheard of here in the states. But it would be cool to have them available here in the shop. Does anyone know where to get them?
Carrying this kind of stuff ties in to a larger goal of being known as a shop with an emphasis on bike commuting.
Peace Rich Community Cycles http://communitycycles.org/ Boulder
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
participants (9)
-
Andy Dyson -
freeridemp＠riseup.net -
Jessica McPherson -
Jonathan Morrison -
Kyle McKinley -
Nathan Pierce -
Paul Park -
Rich Points -
Simon Z