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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18 years + counting: 2 queers reflect on lives & lessons in bike co-ops
43 people are interested in this workshopFriends-for-life Mac Liman (she/her) and Morgan Matter (they/them) have been running bike co-ops, teaching bicycle mechanics, and recycling bikes in Denver, Colorado, USA since 2002, including operating the volunteer-run Derailer Bicycle Collective 2002-2013, volunteering and working as paid staff at Bikes Together (formerly The Bike Depot) 2008-present, working at Denver Bike Sharing B-Cycle program, and wrenching for half a dozen "traditional" retail, neighborhood, and social enterprise bicycle shops. We've visited and collaborated with dozens of bike co-ops around the US (including attending & presenting at Bike!Bike! Conferences from 2004-2009) and have sat on formal and informal boards and committees related to bicycle education, use, access, and advocacy. Our activism outside of bike shops focuses on ending white supremacy and moving towards the equitable distribution of land, wealth & power in the US. We've seen a lot of shit and learned a lot of lessons! The stories we plan to share will primarily focus on:
- Lessons in navigating misogyny & patriarchy in bike culture (how to survive it, how to disrupt & how to destroy it) as two people targeted by sexism.
- Lessons in dismantling white supremacy in bike culture as two people with race & class privilege
- Our biggest impacts, regrets, and where we put our energy now
This will be a panel-style talk followed by a Q&A. Please bring your questions!
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Biking With Babies
10 people are interested in this workshopOne month ago I went back to work after a nine-month parental leave. Biking around Toronto, where we live, with my daughter Nora has been one of the highlights of my leave, and it’s changed the way I think about bikes and biking. My partner first started carrying Nora by bike as a three-month infant.
This workshop will be a guided discussion on carrying kids and babies by bike (before they are able to bike on their own two wheels). We’ll start with a short presentation of perspectives from parents who have carried their kids and babies by bike, followed by a discussion. Some of the ground we hope to cover: what are some of the options for carrying babies and kids by bike? What are some of the hurdles and barriers? What are the (unexpected) benefits? How realistic is it to replace a family car with bikes? How could the bike community, and society at large, shift to make it more accessible and normal to carry babies and kids on bikes? What questions does the group have about carrying kids and babies by bike?
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Capitalism: Against it, Within it
47 people are interested in this workshopAs one of the founding members of a bicycle collective that has been around for almost 14 years, it is still painful to see that the system that our efforts reacted to then is still oppressing and withholding resources from the masses today; that system, of course, is capitalism.
The point of this workshop is to provide a primer on how our shop (the 816 Bicycle Collective in KCMO, USA) interacts with capitalism. Then, with this in mind, I want to facilitate a discussion around how other shops do the same. The impetus of this is less about being angry that our efforts haven't moved mountains than it is about putting this conversation in the foreground. If we don't talk about capitalism when we talk about fulfilling a need that is based out of capitalism's failures, I believe we are really failing ourselves and the communities that we serve.
Join me to talk about this and keep this conversation going. As much as I want to put this front and center at our shop in KC, I also want to hear from others. I hope to learn that we're just behind and that this conversation is already being had by other community shops around the world.
Update:
I didn't know going into this that the sessions were only 40 minutes short. So, I feel that I should note how important participation is here. While I will get the session going, my hope is that this will be a discussion-based 40 minutes. Specifically, I am not trying to teach anyone about capitalism, nor am I trying to persuade anyone of anything; I want for all of us to come away from this with a better understanding of where we and others are on this as a community of community shops.
Consider your thoughts and feeling about your shop as it is situated in you community:
- Do conversations about money at your shop feel normal?
- Do patrons of your shop generally understand how your shop operates?
- Do you feel like the community in general understands how your shop operates?
- Does the fact of capitalism impact how you feel about your shop?
- Does it feel contentious just existing as an alternative model?
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Creative Reuse in the Bike Shop
44 people are interested in this workshopWhat useful things have you made out of scrap/trash/surplus bike parts? What bike parts and accessories have you made out of scrap/trash/surplus stuff?
Have some digital photos ready to share if possible!
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Federating community bike shops: the BUM case
12 people are interested in this workshopThere are at least 15 community bike shops (CBS) in Montréal / Tiohtià:ke. In late 2019, members of BQAM-E and other CBS held a first meeting to form a coalition. Since then, a large number of these CBS have joined the project with a common desire to institutionalize solid links in the community under one flag: Bécyks Unis de Montréal (BUM) / Bikes Unite Montreal (BUM), a federation of CBS.
Sadly, the pandemic has slowed the process down and the first major event was cancelled.
Now that BUM is coming back in action, BQAM-E wanted to take time and place at BIKE!BIKE! this year for a presentation. Some aspects of the presentation will be the objectives, themotives and the specificity of that organization, the types of links and activities that BUM wants to have, etc. BQAM-E also wants to discuss similar phenomenons elsewhere.
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No Welder: DIY Framebuilding With Common Tools
36 people are interested in this workshopOften, the bikes people donate are not the bikes people need or want. Let's talk about ways to create cargo bikes, recumbents, tallbikes, and more - especially by reusing bikes and parts that would otherwise go in the scrap bin. I'll present a few examples (a couple of my own and some others from around the web), but this is a general show-and-tell session, so get ready to show off your own creations too!
If you have a no-weld framebuilding or frame modification project, please bring some digital photos!
Email darin@darinwick.com if you want to plan your part of the presentation in advance, or to see if we can get your project description pre-translated.
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Software vs Paper
25 people are interested in this workshopIn past Bike!Bike! conferences, I have presented the current state of Free Software designed specifically for the operation of Community Bike Shops, here and here . However, in this wonderful conference, the floor will be opened up to everyone who wants to discuss and/or show (screen share) their software operations and/or development, and/or ask questions and/or try to prove that paper is better and/or discuss what software has meant to the success of their organization during the pandemic. I shall begin the discussion with YBDB, and then show the next generation software I have been developing.
Facilitator Background: I have been managing Positive Spin as a volunteer in Morgantown, WV, since 2013, after taking on the challenge in 2012 to save the 501(c)(3) organization from liquidation. Initially, everything was run with the original messy, ineffective, and highly error-prone paper based record system, which was re-entered into the open source accounting system, GnuCash, which replaced the previous spreadsheet method. By 2014, it was obvious we needed a Point of Sale tailored to the needs of a volunteer-run bike collective. Hence, began my adventure in finding that software. As a result, I developed the Reuse Bikes and Reuse Code website to provide demonstrations of existing software, as well as the Wiki Software page. Keeping this story short, I ended up developing a fork of the Yellow Bike Database (YBDB), which I strongly attribute to the viability of our organization since early 2015.
Bike!Bike! with a Positive Spin!
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The Bike Brigade: Responding to a pandemic need, and beyond
24 people are interested in this workshopWhen the first pandemic lockdown hit Toronto in March 2020, a small collective of volunteer cyclists joined forces to address the need for safe, efficient, and friendly delivery services tailored to vulnerable and marginalized communities. Thus, the Toronto Bike Brigade was born. Spearheaded by Dave Shellnut aka “The Biking Lawyer”, we partner with community outreach and mutual aid organizations in the city of Toronto to provide free and timely delivery of prepared meals, groceries and other food items, as well as medication, hygiene products, clothing, and even toys and art supplies. Hundreds of volunteers log thousands of kilometers of rides and haul a literal tonne of goods every month, year round.
This presentation will describe the day-to-day operational aspects from a rider's point of view, including the technology developed in-house specifically for scheduling and dispatch. I will also touch on our social advocacy work, and how we embrace our motto with every ride: “Solidarity Not Charity”. Viewpoints and experiences from other organizations achieving similar goals are encouraged during this discussion!
Moderator: Brian Tao (Bike Brigade and bikeSauce volunteer)