« Pisa and Pedestrians | Main | Coalitions of Architects and Bikers at Studio Forbes this Week »
I’ve been trying to avoid discussions of the recession in the Studio Forbes newsletter. There is more than enough gloom and doom coming at us from the mainstream media. So I’ve been looking around for optimistic stories to cover. Where do you see people really enjoying themselves even though their disposable income may have completely disappeared? What looks and feels happy out there on the streets and in our communities? At the top of my list are the ‘bike kitchens’ that can now be found in most of our cities.
What is a bike kitchen? It’s a community-based, hands-on workshop that provides free (or almost free) help for people needing to fix up their bikes. Think soup kitchen, if they also taught you how to make soup. Bike kitchens have the feel of communal gardens - people go there to have a good time and to create something of value. Health, environment, and community all come together. And there is an urban edgy youth character that keeps them from feeling nostalgic.
A friend took me by the bike kitchen BiciCocina in Los Angeles last month. 300 square feet of local community bike teaching and repair festivities. This is recycling made elegant, personal, fun, and colorful. The place was a magnet for the locals - there were scores of bikes outside and people gathering around. The mechanic-volunteers serve people on a first come first served basis. Rich or poor, you can get help fixing your bike and maybe meet some people you might like to ride with in your ’hood. The LA Cocina has helped to spawn the Bike Oven and the Bikerowave and create of a major movement in Los Angeles. This short film on the excellent Streetsblog captures the feel of LA co-op bike culture. Bike kitchens are popping up and multiplying in cities in the US and Canada, and this growth is what makes them especially optimistic. Click for examples. Google ‘bike kitchens’ for your city and you may find one on your backyard. I did this myself for San Francisco to find ours. I hadn’t known about it, mostly because of its location. From the outside it is a literally a hole in the wall place in an alley in SOMA. On the inside it is a thriving workshop serving all a broad spectrum of the population. There were a lot of kids in parkas and adults in chic riding gear working there when I visited. Anyone is welcome. Membership fees are minimal, and for the well healed you can also buy “digging rights” for thirty bucks which allows you to rummage around and collect all the parts you can find to build an entire bike. The SF Bike Kitchen is a model of what a bike kitchen can be, and also of what challenges bike kitchens are up against. Along with the repair service and education they offer, they are also a resource for information. They provide cycling maps of the city and maintain a website with a directory of “Community Bike Coops” and helpful links to sources like Bike Tutor that helps people repair their bikes at home. Their challenges are largely those of resources, which is why the SF kitchen has limited hours. I visited last week and learned they have to move out of their old rent-free location and into a new spot next month. They could use some help right now in fact. Click here to learn what you can do. Or if you want inspiration, go help them this Sunday (Feb 22) when they will transport their entire operation - all on bikes as they did five years ago. Click to Flickr. How cool is that? Discovering bike kitchens reminded me of a place I visited in Portland last summer. The Recyclery is a bike retail store and repair shop, not really a bike kitchen, but functioning similarly as a hip community resource and good design destination. This high-ceilinged Quonset hut in a downtown neighborhood is a palace of mechanical bike parts, frames, fenders and gears bunched into a sort of artful filing system. The fence outside was a pretty piece of work in itself with wheels turned into hanging pieces of geometry. Portland ranks at the top of the list of bike friendly cities in the US, so it’s not surprising that there are repair places peppered throughout the city - including the Community Cycling Center and the Citybikes Workers Cooperative offering local services. These spaces are genuine, quirky, and visual places to check out bike hardware and local characters. Click here for a sampling on the West Coast. I’m especially fond of these bike kitchens and related bike repair places. Maybe I’m a bit prejudiced, being a bike nut myself. But if there are any better examples of relevant, optimistic enterprises today, I cannot think of any. Our consumer society sometimes seems to have lost the ability to make things, so seeing people enjoying themselves while actually creating things that function is a highly encouraging spectacle. The fact that what they’re working on is the health-promoting, green, pretty bikes out of industrial parts seems more than appropriate - communities forming to bail out local transportation infrastructure right on Main Street. If I hadn’t promised not to talk about our economic mess, I might also mention that the environment at bike kitchens is the exact opposite of that of Wall Street, the banks and the ratings agencies - you don’t need money to play, everyone gets access to all the information, and the experts give good advice and don’t need financial bonuses to get psyched about their jobs. Looking for People I am cooking up some bicycle-related things myself and am looking around for people to assist. One project is an online focus group for which I am a recruiting women who do not currently own and ride bikes. You can live anywhere and participate. I’m also looking for some local Bay Area people who have professional experience in the bike industry and especially some hotshot marketing people who are deep into social networking. If you are passionate about bikes and alternative transportation solutions in general, please drop a note and I’ll tell you more about the scope of the work. Best, Sign Up If you are new to Studio Forbes, or if you have not been getting our newsletters on a regular basis, please sign up here. Pass It On Know anyone in particular who would appreciate the content of this newsletter? If so, please forward this to them. Our readership has grown almost entirely by referrals, and we thank you for this.
A friend took me by the bike kitchen BiciCocina in Los Angeles last month. 300 square feet of local community bike teaching and repair festivities. This is recycling made elegant, personal, fun, and colorful. The place was a magnet for the locals - there were scores of bikes outside and people gathering around. The mechanic-volunteers serve people on a first come first served basis. Rich or poor, you can get help fixing your bike and maybe meet some people you might like to ride with in your ’hood. The LA Cocina has helped to spawn the Bike Oven and the Bikerowave and create of a major movement in Los Angeles. This short film on the excellent Streetsblog captures the feel of LA co-op bike culture.
Bike kitchens are popping up and multiplying in cities in the US and Canada, and this growth is what makes them especially optimistic. Click for examples. Google ‘bike kitchens’ for your city and you may find one on your backyard. I did this myself for San Francisco to find ours. I hadn’t known about it, mostly because of its location. From the outside it is a literally a hole in the wall place in an alley in SOMA. On the inside it is a thriving workshop serving all a broad spectrum of the population. There were a lot of kids in parkas and adults in chic riding gear working there when I visited. Anyone is welcome. Membership fees are minimal, and for the well healed you can also buy “digging rights” for thirty bucks which allows you to rummage around and collect all the parts you can find to build an entire bike.
The SF Bike Kitchen is a model of what a bike kitchen can be, and also of what challenges bike kitchens are up against. Along with the repair service and education they offer, they are also a resource for information. They provide cycling maps of the city and maintain a website with a directory of “Community Bike Coops” and helpful links to sources like Bike Tutor that helps people repair their bikes at home. Their challenges are largely those of resources, which is why the SF kitchen has limited hours. I visited last week and learned they have to move out of their old rent-free location and into a new spot next month. They could use some help right now in fact. Click here to learn what you can do.
Or if you want inspiration, go help them this Sunday (Feb 22) when they will transport their entire operation - all on bikes as they did five years ago. Click to Flickr. How cool is that?
Discovering bike kitchens reminded me of a place I visited in Portland last summer. The Recyclery is a bike retail store and repair shop, not really a bike kitchen, but functioning similarly as a hip community resource and good design destination. This high-ceilinged Quonset hut in a downtown neighborhood is a palace of mechanical bike parts, frames, fenders and gears bunched into a sort of artful filing system. The fence outside was a pretty piece of work in itself with wheels turned into hanging pieces of geometry. Portland ranks at the top of the list of bike friendly cities in the US, so it’s not surprising that there are repair places peppered throughout the city - including the Community Cycling Center and the Citybikes Workers Cooperative offering local services. These spaces are genuine, quirky, and visual places to check out bike hardware and local characters. Click here for a sampling on the West Coast.
I’m especially fond of these bike kitchens and related bike repair places. Maybe I’m a bit prejudiced, being a bike nut myself. But if there are any better examples of relevant, optimistic enterprises today, I cannot think of any. Our consumer society sometimes seems to have lost the ability to make things, so seeing people enjoying themselves while actually creating things that function is a highly encouraging spectacle. The fact that what they’re working on is the health-promoting, green, pretty bikes out of industrial parts seems more than appropriate - communities forming to bail out local transportation infrastructure right on Main Street.
If I hadn’t promised not to talk about our economic mess, I might also mention that the environment at bike kitchens is the exact opposite of that of Wall Street, the banks and the ratings agencies - you don’t need money to play, everyone gets access to all the information, and the experts give good advice and don’t need financial bonuses to get psyched about their jobs.
Looking for People
I am cooking up some bicycle-related things myself and am looking around for people to assist. One project is an online focus group for which I am a recruiting women who do not currently own and ride bikes. You can live anywhere and participate. I’m also looking for some local Bay Area people who have professional experience in the bike industry and especially some hotshot marketing people who are deep into social networking. If you are passionate about bikes and alternative transportation solutions in general, please drop a note and I’ll tell you more about the scope of the work.
Best,
Sign Up If you are new to Studio Forbes, or if you have not been getting our newsletters on a regular basis, please sign up here.
Pass It On Know anyone in particular who would appreciate the content of this newsletter? If so, please forward this to them. Our readership has grown almost entirely by referrals, and we thank you for this.
On all sorts of levels the crisis will bring out people's creativity. check out http://tinyurl.com/funnotfear for how people are expressing their positive energy.
Posted by: Hedy Buzan Williamson | March 16, 2009 at 07:43 AM
I like to see things like this where people actually help each other out. I often think that if we're going to do better in this world & become hopefully a more egalitarian society, we need to do a better job of looking out for each other. I imagine in the future, when gas hits eight bucks a gallon, we'll be seeing more creative outposts such as the above. A bicycle is one of the most perfectly designed devices ever created in my humble opinion.
Posted by: Duncan | February 22, 2009 at 08:03 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
On all sorts of levels the crisis will bring out people's creativity. check out http://tinyurl.com/funnotfear for how people are expressing their positive energy.
Posted by: Hedy Buzan Williamson | March 16, 2009 at 07:43 AM
I like to see things like this where people actually help each other out. I often think that if we're going to do better in this world & become hopefully a more egalitarian society, we need to do a better job of looking out for each other. I imagine in the future, when gas hits eight bucks a gallon, we'll be seeing more creative outposts such as the above. A bicycle is one of the most perfectly designed devices ever created in my humble opinion.
Posted by: Duncan | February 22, 2009 at 08:03 PM