Bike!Bike! 2011

Bike!Bike! 2011 was held in San Marcos, Texas; hosted by The Bike Cave and The San Marcos Community Bike Project. It took place from June 23-26th, 2011.

Schedule

Wednesday June 22

1:00-6:00pm	Pick up a loaner bike (if you're staying the night in Austin) at Austin's Yellow Bike Project
2:00pm - 6:00pm	Open house at UT's Orange Bike Project
6:00 -10:00pm	Open house at Austin's Yellow Bike Project
11:00pm	Open house at Movemint Bike Cab Co. Shop (1301 east 4th street)

Thursday June 23

11:00am - 1:00pm	Pick up your loaner bike (if you've just arrived in Austin) at Austin's Yellow Bike Project
1:00pm	Group ride from Austin's Yellow Bike Project to San Marcos (there will be a truck to take your things to San Marcos)
12:00 - 8:00pm	Check-In at San Marcos Public Library ($25 - $45, pay what you can, nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. Pick up your loaner bike and housing arraignments)
2:00 - 8:00pm	Fix up your bike at The Bike Cave
7:00 - 8:00pm	Welcome / Speak up & speak out!
8:00pm - 10:00pm	Casual welcome dinner at City / Plaza Park with music by Mariachi Nueva Generacion
9:30pm	A screening of "Dudey Free Zone: Women's and Transgender Bike Spaces" plus other short bike-related films. At The Bike Project

Friday June 24

8:00am - 1:00pm	Check-In continued for those who get here late at The Bike Project
8:00 - 9:00am	Yoga (including a light breakfast)
8:30 - 9:30am	Breakfast
9:30am - 11:00am
11:15am - 12:45pm	Workshops
1:00 - 2:30pm	Lunch
2:30 - 4:00pm	Workshops
4:15pm - 5:45pm	Workshops
8:00pm - 9:00pm	The future of Bike! Bike! - a discussion to figure out where we're heading, and how we're getting there. A preview of which project(s) are interested in hosting in 2012.
7:00pm - 10:30pm	Bike polo on top of Speck Street Parking Garage (there will be a group ride leaving from Rio Vista at 6:00pm)
8:00 -11:00pm	Concert at The Bike Project

Saturday June 25

8:00 - 9:00am	Yoga (including a light breakfast)
8:30 - 9:30am	Breakfast
9:30am - 11:00am	Workshops
11:15am - 12:45pm	Workshops
1:00 - 2:30pm	Lunch
2:30 - 4:00pm	Workshops
4:15pm - 5:45pm	Workshops
9:00pm - 12:00am	BIKE! RIDE! BIKE! RIDE!
12:00am - ???	Dance party

Sunday June 26

8:00 - 9:00am	Yoga (including a light breakfast)
8:30 - 9:30am	Breakfast
9:30 - 11:00am	Workshops / final brainstorm
11:15am - 1:00pm	Closing meeting, Bike! Bike! 2012 discussion

Workshops

Operating a mobile on-the-go repair clinic through the city and community organizations

Notes

The original facilitator did not show up for this workshop but the intent was fairly self evident by the name of the workshop. It was begun with a go-around and then by asking the question 'who currently operates a mobile repair unit?'

The Bike Cage from Winnipeg told us that they began as a purely mobile shop until they had enough resources and a space to operate from a permanent location. The Bike Root from Calgary told us that the opposite was true for them, they began with a full shop but after losing their space, kept operations going by setting up in various locations on their campus and around town.

To fix or not? Where do you draw the line?

There were various answers to this question, some shops will only fix flats and minor brake and gear issues. Others were willing to fix anything as long as the tools were available. Arguments for the former included

• lack of proper tools
• lack of more advanced tools or replacement parts in case anything went wrong
• lack of knowledge / trust in the knowledge of some casual volunteers that might attend a mobile repair clinic
• some provide more hand on repair for mobile units to decrease liability in case a bike owner injures themselves but providing more complicated repairs ourselves increases liability in case the owner injures themselves on their bike afterwards.

and for the latter:

• We should do our best to get more bikes fixed and on the road
• We're confident in our skills
• The worst thing that might happen is that a bike that wasn't on the road is now still not on the road
• We make bike owners fix their bikes themselves so we are not liable

Other services

In addition to offering minor repairs, the Bike Cage's mobile unit doubles as a bike valet service. There was no elaboration on how the system works.

Getting the message across that a mobile tune tent is not a fully functioning tent

It seemed to be a common problem that when individuals in the community would hear about a free tune-up possibility, they would often bring in bikes that need repairs far beyond what could be done at a tune tent. It was suggested to avoid this, advertise as "light bike repair".

Who holds the tools?

We had a discussion about if the volunteer should fix the bike for the owner or provide the owner with the tools and teach how to fix the bike hands-off. Whether or not tools were handed to the bike owner, teaching at least by the volunteer explaining what he or she was doing seemed to be the norm. The issues behind whether or not to let the owner fix the bike seemed to be liability dependent on both sides. If the volunteer fixes the bike, the shop becomes liable if the bike causes injury down the road while normally the bike owner has not signed a liability waiver to use the tools, so the shop could be liable if they hurt themselves while repairing their bike.

Ride or drive?

We had a discussion on whether or not to drive the equipment to the location or use a trailer. No one seemed to be passionate for either but there are a lot of options out there for trailers big and small. Fargo rides with a huge 4x6 trailer.

Off topic discussion

The conversation went off topic many times but did produce a few interesting ideas:

• Winnipeg uses a punch card, much like one you would find a a coffee shop or fast food location, to punch out skills that a volunteer has learned. Once the card is completely punched the volunteer can start fixing bikes for others.
• While discussing how to get enough replacement parts, another bike shop told us they provide local bike shops with barrels which the shops can use to put parts that are still usable but would otherwise throw away. The barrels would be picked up and emptied at regular intervals. This shop did not have a problem finding parts when needed as a result.

Working Together: Increasing Inter-Organization Collaboration

The intention of this workshop was to talk about all of the ways in which we as bicycle collectives of different sorts who run our services in many different ways, can share our experiences, successes, failures, and tangible output in order to help other collectives both start and continue to thrive.

Notes

Godwin directed this workshop while Bob Wolfe facilitated in providing a speakers list. A large sheet of paper was used to help keep visible notes, at the end of the discussion the notes were the following:

• Current Tools
  • BOOP
  • Bike!Bike!
  • Think Tank
  • Bike Collectives Network
  • Bike Collectives Wiki
  • Various collaborative tools such as our Google Docs list of organizations and Google Maps visualization of orgs across North America

• What we need these tools for
  • Learn how to start a collective
  • Learn how to continue running a collective
  • Find example documents
    • Volunteer Privileges
    • Todo for new volunteers
    • Financials
    • Fliers
    • Curricula
    • Manuals
    • 501c and not-for-profit forms
    • Tool lists
    • Inventory
    • Price guide
    • Mission statement
    • Bylaws
    • Safe space
    • Legal documents
    • Letters for grant writing
  • Find out how other organizations run their various programmes
  • Partner with other organizations

• Brainstorming Ideas which could help
  • A Bike!Bike! Wiki
  • Have more involved wiki moderators who will make suggestions for improvements
  • News feed on wiki
  • Email individuals to improve pages
  • New list-serve other than the Think Tank which can be used for these emails
  • More list-serves for different purposes
  • Online Forums
  • Request documents, pages, and improvements once a year or at other regular intervals
  • Rid the wiki of closed shops
  • RSS feeds on the wiki
  • Separate blog or paper news
  • Paypal donations on BCN or the wiki
  • An umbrella or 'helping hand' organization
  • A seed fund
  • Micro Loans for starting up shops
  • A no-reply list-serve

Key Points

• An 'umbrella' organization goes against many principles that are held by most shops however a 'helping hand' organization that acts as a third party to facilitate to spread of knowledge and possibly funds would likely not.
• To improve the wiki it will take some active moderating and contacting of individuals.
• The wiki is difficult to navigate so it should be reorganized
• Bikecollectives.org is not serving any other purpose other than providing the wiki.
• The Think Tank is too much for many to handle, there are too many emails about things that many don't care about.

Outcome

• Godwin promised to contact the current owners of bikevollectives.org to see if improvements could be made.
• Adding increased moderation of the wiki will be looked into

Contact

• Bike!Bike! website: http://www.bikebike.org
• The Bike Cave's website: http://thebikecave.org
• Email: bikebike2011@gmail.com