Workshops
Do you have an exciting skill to share with us? Want to chat about creating safe community spaces? Want to make sure we fit a good bike ride into the weekend? Propose a workshop! Don’t worry if you’re not an expert, we want to hear about everyone’s experience within the many configurations of community shops we’re coming from.
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$$$: Sliding Scale, At-Cost, Grants, etc.
38 people are interested in this workshopHow do you keep the lights on at your bicycle program?
Are you a non-profit? For-profit? No money involved?
Small-scale? Large-scale? Somewhere in between?
Do you sell/exchange goods and services at a sliding-scale cost? At-cost?? For free???
I want to facilitate a financial discussion on creative ways to fund long-term community bicycle projects, ranging from Do-It-Yourself workshop spaces to youth programming to whatever else you're up to in your city/town/village.
Background: Pierre is a volunteer member of the Spokeland Bicycle Cooperative, a DIY nonprofit (501c3) bicycle workshop in Oakland, CA. Spokeland's biggest expense is rent, followed by new parts/accessories purchasing. These expenses are funded primarily through the exchange of used bicycles and parts for monetary donations. Spokeland is open for at least 11 hours every week, and at least 3 days per week.
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A discussion on working together with other organizations in your city, region, or network
25 people are interested in this workshopWe'll host a discussion on why and how to collaborate with other organizations in your home city or region. Volunteers and staff from several community bike shops in Toronto and Vancouver will share how we're already meeting regularly, cooperating on launching a standardized survey, and sharing resources.
We also want to hear about your experiences (or hopes) of working with other organizations in your city, region, or network! Discussion questions we'd like to explore include: do you already collaborate? What are some benefits and barriers to working with other shops? What are some collaboration best practices? How do you motivate people to come to meetings? What are some ways to share resources among shops of different sizes and structures? And do so equitably?
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Attracting and Maintaining Volunteers
73 people are interested in this workshopVolunteers are the heart and muscle of many organizations. With so many causes, efforts, projects out there for people to commit their valuable time and energy, how do you attract excellent volunteers to your organization? More importantly, once someone shows up once, how do you keep them coming back?
During this discussion, we will start by breaking down what gets people through the door in the first place. I will share my own experiences through bicycle and food security organizing and encourage a discussion among participants. We will then explore aspects of what keeps people coming back, growing with the organization, and really making it a part of their lives.
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Bicicletas y sonoridad
7 people are interested in this workshopExplorar y construir mediante el reciclaje Caminos y Remolques Sonoros.
El paseo ciclista y la sonoridad. Creación comunitaria..
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Bicycling and the law
5 people are interested in this workshopHear Josh Cohen, the Los Angeles Bicycle Attorney, explain the legal issues surrounding bicycling, particularly the importance of insurance if you are ever hit by a car while cycling. This information is indispensable!
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Bike and Culture Collaborations
6 people are interested in this workshopThe arts are an opportunity to unite a broader audience with bicycling both culturally and in practice. Learn about bike projects that have been largely funded by arts foundations and how to do it yourself.
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Bike Coop Employees
20 people are interested in this workshopI work for a non-profit Bike Coop in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. We are a fairly young Coop (6 years old) and each year we grow and develop our programing and structure. The Coop has employed part-time Mechanics to a Volunteer Coordinator and now have a Operations Manager (myself).
This presentation will be on the how The Bridge City Bicycle Coop has developed from it's humble beginnings running out of a group of bike enthusiasts garage to what we are today.
All Coop start somewhere and it can be very helpful to hear how others have been successful or even unsuccessful. There will be time for group discussion about the different structures and employment of other coops.
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Bike Share Systems
46 people are interested in this workshopFriends? Foes?
I'm biased, I work for one in Portland. I wonder how to have a productive relationship with each other as our goals are similarly lined up. Except, most bike share is for profit.
I'd love to have an open discussion about bike share systems.
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Bike Touring and Bike Packing with Youth
19 people are interested in this workshopInterested in starting a youth bike touring or outdoor adventure cycling program? Looking for ways to improve the program you already have? Come hear some tips on getting started from three different organization's perspectives on bicycle touring, bike packing, and mountain biking with youth.
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Bike Trains Presentation
12 people are interested in this workshoppresented by LA Bike Trains. introduction to the history, potential variations & future of Bike Train projects.
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Bikes for All! Increase access and minimize barriers to the bicycle as a vehicle of change
67 people are interested in this workshopJoin me in a discussion of the process involved in organizing youth and adult community bike giveaways - diverting bicycles from the waste stream and through predominately volunteer hours returning them to members of our community who do not have access to a bicycle - for free!
In partnership with community organizations and public schools, in 2017 over 650 participants received bicycles in SE Seattle and beyond through Bike Works programming. Ranging from 351 youth ages 2 - 8 in Kids Bike-O-Rama, 78 youth between 3rd and 5th grade receiving free or reduced lunch in Seattle public schools through UGottaGetABike BMX bike-giveaways, and 229 low-income adults over age 18 received a commuter bike, lights, lock, and a helmet through our Bikes for All! program.
We will walk through the procurement, triage, staff and volunteer labor, application process, scheduling, and day-of logistics for coordinating multiple, recurring community bike events. We've learned a lot about facilitating community bike events but still face challenges like day-of attendance and best practices for registration.
I'll lead the conversation with detailed examples of processes and arrangements we've had success with and open it up for others to share their successes and challenges.
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Bikes Without Borders
71 people are interested in this workshopA dialogue about the potential and opportunities for international exchanges, collaborations, internships, residencies and other alternative forms of knowledge and capacity-sharing.
Bike!Bike! presents a unique opportunity for collectives and projects from multiple countries to get to know each other, find common objectives, define mutually beneficial projects, and set a collaboration process in motion.
Examples from both the bike community and other environments will be presented. A multiplicity of financial vehicles for these types of international collaborative relationships will be explored.
20 minute presentation and 40 minute dialogue.
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Biking from Youth
19 people are interested in this workshopL.A. Rooted Youth would like to lead a panel/discussion about the youth's perception of "Biking in Urban Settings". The intention of the discuss is to hear the youth out, to discover what some of the needs of youth are, and for the youth to encourage varies bike collectives to start more youth biking programs in the city.
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CANCELED: Bike Polo for Total Beginners
40 people are interested in this workshopThis workshop, led by Gillian Wu, Eva Mennigan, and Leah Wulfman of Los Angeles Bike Polo, is intended as a safe space for total beginners to learn the basics of BIKE POLO!
Bring your bike and borrow a mallet for a hands-on workshop where you'll learn the basics of bike polo's rules, how to stay safe on the court, and basic skills like tripods, bunny hops, and ball handling.
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Chief Lunes: Community Meeting and Justice for Woon!
One person is interested in this workshop -
Conflict resolution with staff and customers
11 people are interested in this workshopThis is intended to be an open discussion about how different shops handle conflict resolution between their members, and how they handle difficult "customers".
Bikerowave, open mainly at night, certainly has a large number of intoxicated, beligerant, and sometime very "olfactory challening" folks coming in our doors. How do you deal with these situations in your shop?
Also, how do you deal with interpersonal conflict within your organization? Do you have a board that votes to ban or suspend access? Is it left to the entire membership? Do you use moderators?
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Create your own decals!
70 people are interested in this workshopA fun crafting work shop. I will bring supplies to create decals. More details to be written as I think of them.
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Create Your Own Workshop
One person is interested in this workshopDidn’t see a workshop you wanted to see? Create your own in true DIY fashion.
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Events and how to establish a comunity connections
45 people are interested in this workshopTo learn where an how to connect I want to share experiences of doing 100's of events and establishing connections in community and establishing relationships to help your organization
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Experiments and pedaLudic inventions
26 people are interested in this workshopKnowledge is the result of a confrontation game between instinct and knowledge. This battle generates commitment that emerges from a clash, a raw explosion that gives rise to knowledge.We will focus on the problem of assembling a laboratory that thinks and rethinks the limits of the bicycle as a cultural tool in order to propose urban actions. The bicycle as an experimental laboratory, always in motion, rolling, allowing us to understand the world in different ways.
We will present three study projects currently under development in our workshop. Each one of them proposes a particular device, product of the synergy between different trades and knowledge, where our beloved friend the Bike is always the starting point. We will ask ourselves how to build an horizontal and heterogeneous workshop, where the contributions of the participants come together harmoniously to achieve a new great (bike) invention.
- Project Z: a bike able to roll on railway rails, which experiences a different relationship with landscape. Travel with the Bike through unusual places from unique perspectives.
- Project G: a bike with graphic expression abilities that leaves traces when riding: it draws, stains, fills its path with color.
- Project N: a nocturnal bike that collects and transforms environmental energy (light and sound waves), conditioning its own cadence and displacement according to the recorded stimuli, playing music and projecting another luminosity through the city.
SOME QUESTIONS:
- is it about to invent the bike as a device to perceive urban from a different perspective?
- is the bike an urban dweller?
- are we different inhabitants when we ride a bike?
- Are we like centaurs wen riding our bike?
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Hands-Off Teaching: How to keep the wrench in the patron's hand
9 people are interested in this workshopFor those of us who struggle with not doing the work for our patrons, learn tips and tricks to keep the wrench in the hands of those learning how to fix their bikes!
First presented at Bike!Bike! 2010 in Toronto, this workshop discusses a philosophy based around teaching rather than DOING, and the challenges of instructing in a Do-It-Yourself workspace.
We will share challenges, techniques, hot tips, and a hands-on/off exercise involving fruit ;)
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Hosting Art Workshops - and fun things to make with Bike Tubes
24 people are interested in this workshopWhat can a recycled art program add to your community project? At BICAS art is an important part of what we do, but you don't need any fancy resources to integrate simple recycled art projects into your community bike shop. Art projects are a great way to engage youth, elders, and creative community members. We will present easy straight-forward projects that you can bring out to events, schools or use as a fundraiser!
In this workshop, we will be making hands-on craft projects from old bike tubes and simple tools.
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How do you do what you do?
20 people are interested in this workshopSeveral cooks at Los Angeles Bicycle Kitchen went on a field trip to another community bike shop recently that operated very differently from us, which got us thinking how many different ways are there?
For example, Bicycle Kitchen/La Bici-Cocina has six stands with six different colored tool boards, each with its own set of tools open to all for use ranging from various wrenches (in which 15mm mysteriously disappears) and hex keys to headset cup remover and brake centering tools.
(Picture of BK from our previous location many years ago. It looks more or less the same at the current location but more grimy.)
On the other hand, the other co-op has no tool boards. They hand out a bag of tools at check in, and they are returned and inspected at check-out. This kind of blew our minds. Now we want to know more of what is out there. (We are especially curious to see if you have undergone any transformation in physical operation of your space and if that had any major effect on the vibe of your shop.)
Bicycle Kitchen will give a short presentation of our space and operation processes with pictures discussing its pros and cons + Q&A (less than 10 minutes combined). We welcome you to do the same. In other words, let's give each other a virtual tour of our spaces!
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Lessons from a UK Community Bike Cafe & The Vulture Guide: How to Start & Sustain a Bike Workshop & Recyclery
33 people are interested in this workshopThis session will draw some lessons from the story of Roll for the Soul, a non-profit bike cafe in Bristol, UK, which ran for five years from 2013 to 2017.
What worked? What did we get wrong? Would we have done anything differently if we'd have known how things would turn out? What would we tell other people thinking about doing something similar? Are there principles we’re glad we stuck to even though they didn't make for an organisation that lasted? How did we benefit from links with other DIY communities outside the bike world?
Hopefully a discussion of these questions will be useful in a North American context, for anyone interested in building community-focused organisations that generate their own revenue and aren't reliant on precarious grant funding and/or donated time and other resources.
Roll for the Soul grew out of two volunteer-led Bristol bike organisations, Bristol Cycle Festival (an annual week-long celebration of all things bike) and The Bristol Bike Project (a well-established bike recycling project and community workshop). It was an attempt to bring the spirit of these organisations to a wider and more mainstream audience, while maintaining their non-profit, DIY, community-led ethos. It was also an experiment in trying to run a trading business that was people- rather than profit-focused in an environment where that constitutes swimming against the tide.
The session will discuss the start-up process from initial idea, through business-planning and fundraising, securing premises and building a team, through to opening. It will then consider some successes and failures from our years of operation, before talking about the process of deciding to close, the reasons for that decision, and what it meant in practice for 14 staff and hundreds of customers.
The aim is to make this a participatory session, with attendees encouraged to offer their ideas on what can be learned from Roll for the Soul's story, and how future attempts at creating financially-sustainable bike-based DIY social spaces might do better.
Although Roll for the Soul is now closed, you can still view its website for more information. Anyone wanting to attend the session is encouraged to take a look at the site beforehand and consider what about the place looked good, what not so good, and anything they'd like to raise in the discussion. There's a statement about why we decided to close here.
(A note about the presenter. I was one of Roll for the Soul's founders and was managing director from day one until we handed our keys back at the end of the lease. I'm now on a year-long tandem tour around North America with Katy, my wife, who's taken some time off from her job as a dementia support worker. We’re really looking forward to meeting people at Bike!Bike! 2018 and hope that some of the stuff we've been involved in at home might be interesting to you. We have a blog if you'd like to check out what we've been doing on the first half of our trip in Canada and the USA. Thanks!)
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Mesa/Expo fotografica en apoyo a gente y comunidades/colectivos en resistencia en el centro de Mexico
22 people are interested in this workshopEn todo Mexico se encuentra gente luchando, reisistiendo y oponiendose a diversas problematicas derivadas del capitalismo neoliberal. Los problemas a resolver incluyen robo de tierra, desplazamiento, gentrificacion, desaparicion forzada, entre muchos otros.
El apoyo y la busqueda de respuestas son diversas. En la Ciudad de Mexico diversas organizaciones, colectivos, cooperativas y personas libres buscamos a traves de rodadas hacia algunos de estos puntos en resistencia, acercanos a conocer a las personas, sumarnos en su lucha y visibilizar, compartir, cooperar en la medidad de nuestras posibilidades.
Esta mesa/expo compartira la experiencia vivida en estas rodadas a traves de los conocimientos y estrategias llevadas a cabo para tales empresas.
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Organizing for Access at the Confluence of Parks and Bicycling
42 people are interested in this workshopThis workshop will share and discuss the strategy and organizing behind the "Bike! Bike! Los Angeles Welcoming Party and Bicycling Convergence" to be held on the evening of Thursday, September 28, to welcome Bike! Bike! to the bicycling city of Los Angeles.
The event is a collaboration between the Los Angeles State Historic Park, the Los Angeles River State Park Partners, GreenInfo Network, Public Matters, and the Spatial Awareness Network. It is designed to celebrate bicycling access to parks along the Los Angeles River in downtown Los Angeles, but also to highlight the need for better, safer pedestrian and bicycling access to our parks, and the importance of community knowledge in creating safe, lively, beautiful, interesting and pleasurable bikeways to and from our parks.
Public Matters, an arts and civic engagement organization, is organizing a convergence of bike trains from neighborhoods surrounding the park, culminating in a welcoming celebration at the park. GreenInfo Network is producing a map and mobile app of bicycling and pedestrian access to Los Angeles State Historic Park and other river parks in the area, including Rio de Los Angeles State Park, and the Bowtie Parcel. The Spatial Awareness Network is helping to gather community knowledge about the best ways to access the river and parks and the bike train convergence will showcase those routes as well as access ways that need improvement.
The map and app, the convergence, and the celebration are meant to celebrate the culture of bicycling and highlight the importance of community knowledge in creating vibrant access to bicycling and parks. This workshop will be a lively exchange of tools, methods, and tactics, as well as ideas about strategies for shaping a culture of access to parks and bicycling in Los Angeles and around the world.
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Output Inc: Bike Sounds and Music Making
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PEDALs! Bite-sized Lessons in Innovative Organizing
66 people are interested in this workshopPartnerships, Engagement, Design, and Access Lectures: five to seven organizers will each present a five-to-seven-minute talk about one innovative initiative they have been involved with this year. These “PEDALs” will reveal exciting projects happening in community bike shops across the world. Whether you’re involved in lowering barriers to bike access, building creative infrastructure, collaborating with unexpected partners, or expanding your community of members, this is an opportunity to present your exciting work and learn about other initiatives.
The workshop will be facilitated by Josh Bisker and Aida Mas Baghaie from the Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op. To get our gears going, they will also lead a PEDAL on an ongoing participatory design process to start a bike repair outpost at a community garden in Queens, NY.
Call for submissions! If you’re interested in presenting your own PEDAL, contact aida.masb@gmail.com
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PedaLudikeadas y ritmoanalisis
9 people are interested in this workshopConversacion sobre experiencias PedaLúdicas en relación al ritmoanálisis. Qué es el ritmoanálisis y cómo aplicarlo a nuestra práctica ciclista? Comprender la ciudad desde sus ritmos, romperlos, proponer nuevos ritmos y maneras de moverse. La bicicleta como medida del tiempo y el espacio. La bicicleta es una ventana que nos deja entender nuestros alrededores y nuestro comportamiento como animal social.
Conversations about PedaLudikeadas on Rhythmanalysis. What is rhythmanalysis and how to apply it to our cycling practice? Understand the city by its rhythms, break them, transform them. The bicycle as a measure of time and space. The bicycle is a window that lets us understand our surroundings and our behavior as a social animal.
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Politics and cycling advocacy
22 people are interested in this workshopThis workshop aims to create a discussion surrounding the intersection between cycling advocacy (in all its forms) and the political process (writ small and large).
I've been a bike mechanic for 12 years and a lawyer for 3. My practice is primarily in criminal defense and have done several cycling related cases. I've also been active doing advocacy through Ghost Bikes Montréal over the last year. I'm hoping to attract attendees who have relevant experience as well as those hoping to take up the cause.
I propose to use my own experience as a lawyer and a cycling advocate to facilitate a discussion surrounding effective political strategies to promote cycling.
B!B! attendees come from a diversity of places and I hope that by sharing our successes and failures we can promote the former and avoid the latter.
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Pop-Up Shops: Empowering Under-Served Youth
55 people are interested in this workshopThe Benton County Health Department, and Corvallis School District partnered with the Corvallis Bike Collective (CBC) to improve access and inclusion in bicycling so elementary kids and families have opportunities to ride for transportation, exercise and for fun. These pop-up shops are springboards for introducing more people to active transportation and show how bicycling can be incorporated into their everyday lives to make it a healthy habit. Using active transportation to get to and from school benefits children’s physical and emotional health.
Participants either qualified for free or reduced lunch, were Spanish or Arabic speakers, or both. Anyone was welcome to participate in the Pop-Up Bike Shops, but bicycles were not available to the general public. Donated bicycles fixed-up by CBC were at the pop-up shops and everyone who received a bicycle also received a new helmet and a bike light. Mechanic services were also available at our Ask-a-Wrench mobile repair station. CBC hosted two bike drives prior to the pop-up shops.
The presentation will also include information about some of our best practices from the shop, primarily organizational infrastructure to help make shop processes as intuitive as possible.
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Presentación del zine: Resiste pedal, experiencias de viajes en bicicleta. Hecho por y dirigido a mujeres, trans y personas no binarias.
9 people are interested in this workshopLa ola de violencia que en los últimos años ha azotado a nuestro país (México), pero principalmente el incremento de feminicidios, nos hace replantearnos la posibilidad y la viabilidad de rodar dentro del territorio mexicano. A partir de esta premisa es que surge la idea de generar un fanzine sobre viajes en bicicleta, con el cual compartiríamos las experiencias que hemos tenido rodando en nuestro país. Lanzamos una convocatoria, bajo el nombre de la colectiva resiste pedal, a mujeres, trans y personas no binarias cicloviajerxs que quisieran participar en la creación del zine. La respuesta que obtuvimos fue maravillosa.
Es por ello que queremos compartir el resultado final de fanzine, el proceso creativo que llevo y las redes que se generaron a partir del trabajo en colectiva.
Después de la presentación del fanzine, pretendemos abrir una mesa de diálogo e intercambio de ideas sobre la vulnerabilidad o los privilegios que hemos tenido haciendo cicloviajes y como es que estos se ven atravesados por nuestrxs contextos de género, clase y raza.
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Running a Trans*/Women/Non-Binary Bike Program
54 people are interested in this workshopMany of us have been inspired and emboldened by the amazing work done by peers we meet at Bike!Bike! This is certainly true when it comes to issues around claiming space and demanding access for Trans*, Women, and Non-Binary identifying cyclists and mechanics. Creating a safer space where these folks can learn to fix their bikes and use tools can be a great joy as well as a huge challenge.
In this workshop we will discuss types of programs, partnerships, outreach tools, and examples of effective dialogue to deal with push-back or those who are just confused. We would like to also include discussion around organizing T*/W/NB events like group rides and races (etc.) if folks have an interest.
This discussion will prioritize voices that are often missing in bike spaces, and we hope to encourage and inspire folks interested in starting their own programs and spaces for ***women, girls, transgender, transgender*, non-binary, gender-queer, gender-variant, gender non-conforming, 2-spirit, femme, queer, sissy folks....etc.***!
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Facilitators/Presenters:
Ainsley Ambush has been helping to run Women & Trans* Hours at Bike Pirates (Toronto, ON) for 10 years. She also works at Charlie's FreeWheels which provides Girls/Trans*/Non-Binary sessions for their Build-A-Bike, Learn-To-Ride and group ride programs. Ainsley is also involved in teaching and facilitating Girls Rock Camp Toronto which provides a safe space for girls, transgender and non-binary kids to learn to play music!
Casey Wollschlaeger has been facilitating FTW open shop nights since 2007 with FM Community Bike Workshop, (Fargo, ND), BICAS (Tucson, AZ), and currently GreaseRag Ride & Wrench (Minneapolis, MN). Casey is also a mechanic, service coordinator, & worker-owner at The Hub Bike Co-op (Mpls) which hosts GreaseRag open shops & is committed to safer spaces & gender inclusive policies.
Katie Blackburn coordinates Women + Queer Night at Free Ride (Pittsburgh, PA). Under different leadership three years ago, Free Ride attempted this sort of event and it was not sustainable; Katie is committed to using her nonprofit management knowledge and relationship building ability to see it succeed now. She is also involved in the local bicycle advocacy group - specifically their womyn/genderqueer/gender-non conforming arm (WMNBikePGH) and the Pitt Queer Professionals group housed at the local university.
Diana Englert staffs and helps coordinate the Women, Trans*, Femme Workshop at BICAS (Bicycle Inter-Community Art & Salvage) in Tucson, AZ. This program has taken on several different iterations and overcome many obstacles in its 15 years of existence before it's current W.T.F. Workshop structure. We are still searching for ways to increase accessibility and decrease barriers to our space as well as create effective ways to engage our WTF community beyond bike mechanics.
Sarah Thiessen is the proud coordinator and lead instructor for a variety of women/trans/femme-focused programming at The WRENCH (Winnipeg Repair Education N’ Cycling Hub) in Winnipeg, Canada (of Bike!Bike! 2017 fame), including Mellow Velo (bi-weekly shop hours), Sister Cycle (annual free drop-in bicycle mechanics workshop series), Girls Bike Club (weekly bike class for newcomer girls) and various outreach workshops at Women’s Resource Centres throughout the city. She also co-leads Winnipeg’s CycloFemme, an international femme-powerment group ride held annually on Mother’s Day. Outside of work, she shares her passion for bicycles and feminism through her art (ask her for a sticker/patch!)
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Supporting New Mechanics in Your Collective
21 people are interested in this workshopAre you new to your project? Joined 2 years ago and still feel like you haven't found that old wrench confidence quite yet? Or are you an old wrench who remembers going through that when you first joined? Then let's all talk about it! This discussion will walk through life in the shop as a new wrench and talk about how we can support each other amongst the harsh realities and possible obstacles we face.
This conversation will be facilitated by Asha Greyeyes and other staff from the BICAS Collective in Tucson, Arizona.
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The Bicycling Commons
40 people are interested in this workshopI'd like to present for about 30-40 minutes and then facilitate a discussion with this as the starting point:
A Bicycling Commons is a curious concept. Rather than referring to a specific land or landscape, it refers to a shared state of mind and a shared set of experiences. What animates the notion of a Bicycling Commons is that so many people who have chosen to bicycle in cities feel they are a part of it. How does this relate to actual political projects to reclaim and reopen commons? When did the Bike Commons emerge? From where? What kinds of political antecedents helped shape this sensibility? And is it an ongoing reality or is it best understood as a passing phenomenon of a very particular transitional period between the 20th and 21st centuries?
I would argue that the bicycle is an incidental—or accidental—facilitator of an urgent need to address a wide range of issues. At one time or another in our lives, most cyclists came to identify bicycling as a way individually to embrace social change. Perhaps we concluded it was the key to unraveling the dangerous traffic nightmare plaguing most of the world’s cities, or to reclaiming a more convivial public space from the domination of private cars. Or we connected bicycling to a refusal to participate in oil wars; or a refusal to accept the mountain of debt associated with car and oil dependency; or a refusal of the massive pollution by fossil fuels that is wreaking havoc with the world’s climate.
... presentation covering the history and evolution of Critical Mass in San Francisco, with sidebars on various other cities around the world.
This surprising turn to bicycling as transportation has been both a successful fruit of the Bicycling Commons experience, and paradoxically, has also been a sign of the rapid decline of the Bicycling Commons. As more and more people choose to bicycle as everyday transportation, fewer experience the euphoria and transformative experience that was once transmitted through Critical Mass. Prior to mass adoption of daily cycling, it was easy to feel connected to other cyclists in various urban environments, as one shared the sense of being a hardy minority, soldiering on in the difficult choice to cycle through social and infrastructural hostility and obstruction. The bicycling culture that gave rise to the sense of a Bicycling Commons started to disintegrate precisely as more and more people were choosing to bicycle as their everyday transportation. By 2018, bicycle culture—and especially the solidarity that bound cyclists together—has practically disappeared, at least in San Francisco.
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The role of bicycles in disaster emergency response. Case: Mexico City earthquake 09/19/2017
43 people are interested in this workshopWe'll talk about the super important role bicycles, cyclists and infrastructure played in the immediate response to distribute food, tools, medicines and whatever was needed in a full collapsed city after a 7.2 earthquake happened in the limits of Puebla on September 19th 2017.
The earthquake happened at 1:15 pm on a Tuesday, most families were apart since it was work and school hours. Due to proximity to the city and depth, the 7.2 earthquake left lots of damages in the city: around 50 collapsed buildings, some areas were completely inaccesible by car either because of road damages or because of traffic congestion, the almost 10 million residents of the city and the nearly 10 million floating population were trying to go back home in their own cars, walking or finding rides. Public transportation systems were collapsed because 90% of the city was under power outage. The first people to mobilize and who were actually able to help were (yes, you guessed!): CYCLISTS.
People of all walks of life, commuters, messengers, street workers, or pretty much anyone with a semi-functional bike took their vehicles and took the streets to distribute whatever was needed. This made some of us re-think how our cities are planned (if they even are) to face disasters that might happen in the future.
In this workshop we'll talk more details on this experience, we'll bring a couple testimony, and we'll make an exercise with participants so they can asses the risks their cities face and evaluate if they are ready to respond to such crisis.
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THE VULTURE GUIDE: How to Start and Sustain a Bicycle Workshop & Recyclery
22 people are interested in this workshopThe Vulture Guide is a soon-to-be-published comprehensive blueprint for bike collectives and related bicycle projects. This workshop will study the book's outline and elaborate on certain topics. We will then discuss what content seems to be lacking, altogether missing, or in need of further editing.
This is a participatory workshop! Everyone's encouraged to share ideas, personal experiences, success stories and failures, and other information that should be in a such a guide. We are also looking for artists to contribute illustrations.
Presented by Mama Vulture & Sashimi
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Theory and Practice of Wheelbuilding
56 people are interested in this workshopThere can sometimes be a dearth of mechanical workshops at Bike!Bike! (and it can sometimes be hard to pick up advanced skills in volunteer-run spaces) so if folks are interested I can run one on wheelbuilding. I've taken a wheelbuilding course at UBI before and build all the wheels in my day job at a for-profit shop. I can explain some of the physics behind how wheels work, best practices for lacing, truing, and tensioning, and maybe give a hands-on demonstration of lacing if there are parts and tools available. I'd be happy to involve other experienced wheelbuilders in the teaching process if anyone is interested!
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Who wants to talk about evaluating community bike shops?!
20 people are interested in this workshopEvaluation can be defined as the rigorous, scientifically-based collection of information about a program/intervention/organization to articulate and determine its impact. Many Community Bike Shops (CBS) already evaluate their organizations in some way, shape, or form. For instance, many CBS actively collect and report on data, such as how many people come through the shop, the demographics of patrons/members, how many bikes are donated and/or given away each year, etc. These pieces of information, called outputs, is a key first step to evaluating your organization. The next step to evaluation is evaluating outcomes, or asking the questions, “What effects or changes do the outputs of CBS have on individuals, communities, and cities they serve? And, how can we measure these effects/changes?” This presentation/group discussion explores this big question. Using data from a small pilot study in 2018, we will present and generate discussion on what evaluating the outcomes of CBS might look like and strategies to help achieve that goal.
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Youth Bike Programming - Putting tools in the hands of kids and young adults!
61 people are interested in this workshopParticipatory discussion and skill-share on the variety of youth programming that is feasible within the context of Community Bike Projects. Open Shop, structure mechanics programs, learn-to-ride, group rides, race training, etc. etc..
How to engage youth and what types of programs are successful at various organizations: format, funding, staffing, and hot tips and tricks. Ainsley and Alix have been at the helm of Charlie's Freewheels (Toronto, ON) for the past 3 years, where they facilitate youth bicycle programming. They will help lead this enthusiastic discussion about empowering the next generation of cyclists - let us know if you would like to present on your organizations achievements!