Friday, November 09, 2007

Bicycle Class 101

Hello all,

My name is Geoffrey and Martino recently gave me permission to contribute...and thank you all. I have a serious issue to bring up. I wish to ask all of you who read as to your ideas on a bike class. This class Will be held in the format of Free University and Bike Pirates. I want to build a class on bike with a flexible curriculum and focus.

Classes will be every week, at Bike Pirates...Tuesday nights . Discussions will be formulated by the interests of the people that attend. If one person has a question on bike mechanics, it will be discussed, if one person wants to commit to mechanics, a workshop will be organized by the people interested. If a person wants to talk about bike safety, history, bike lanes,...etc, it will be discussed. Organizing community events is the goal of such a class.

Any thoughts, feedback is a must on this community project in the works.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Geoffrey,

Good for you. I don't know where the place is, and I'm not sure I'll be available anyway.

A thought: bring photos and/or weblinks of some fine lovingly hand-crafted custom cycles to display to people that bikes are serious machines and that bike mechanics deserve repect. As well, with a society bombarded with the idolizing of car-culture, we'd do well to counter by showing people some of the wonderful custom bikes (and, fine mass production bikes). Particularly, the functional and practical utilitarian city/commuter/touring styles; folding; and Euro cargo bikes.

Vanilla; Bruce Gordon; Rivendell; and, Toronto's own Mariposa brand (from Bike Specialties).

Henry WorkCycles of Amsterdam.

Also, discussions regarding materials (types of steel and characteristics) and geometry to instill in people a sense of the sophistication involved. Just a brief overview would be fine.

We need to get people excited about cycles.

"Excited 'bout Cycles" ... there's a name for ya!

All the best.


David.

Anonymous said...

Get some messengers in to show the rest of us urban riding survival tricks. I know there'd have to be a lot of "don't try this at home" comments, but it would be fun and useful. I'd buy her/him beer.

Geoffrey said...

All is good, A date has been set, but keep the comments coming?!

Anonymous said...

The bike chain did something similar last year throughout the winter. I did not go to many, but the wheel building workshop was quite popular. Perhaps you could do one of those.

Geoffrey said...

the idea of the course, is to create workshops, a class to pool bike assets such as tools, space and knowledge, and to connect people and being people together under pet projects...by the end of every class...we will make something outside of the class, in the form of a workshop.

Bike Chain was not very hands-on and the space was small....

Melissa said...

Funny, I was just talking to someone today about how I wished something like this existed--free Rider's Ed classes for cyclists who don't have the cash to pay for the classes the city provides. There are a lot of new cyclists on the roads these days (myself included), and there's a lot of unsafe riding going on. In addition to survival tips and tricks, I would also like to learn proper riding practices and things like good falling techniques. Maybe if I'd learned that, I wouldn't have a broken arm right now! Using the city's bike class curriculum as a starting point might be an idea...

Of course publicity is key--I don't think too many new cyclists know about Bike Pirates, and I think these are some of the people that really need the classes. Of course there are a lot of people who think they know everything--or think that there's nothing to know--that could use the classes as well.

Advertising in bike shops, big and small, would be a good start.