Very soon, Freeride will be losing its storage space where it houses
hundreds of bikes waiting to be fixed or used for parts or art. Do you
know of any good storage space? Basements of buildings in town, unused
garages, warehouses? Free is preferable, but we may be able to pay modest
rent.

Also, while we love our shop space, we are almost constantly feeling the
limit of its size. Ideally, we would like to find a suitable shop space
attached to or very close to a storage space.

Please email us with ideas!

Community Bike Project Minutes – 1/31/08
In attendance: Geoff Beyer, Stan Brinkerhoff, Madeline Sharrow, Colin Gunn, Alec Hill, Scott

Q&A with Geoff about the last program in Montpelier:
-    They aimed to keep 12 out, and generally had 8 out at a time. 12 or more is important to maintain a “critical mass” where bikes are visible and available.
-    They had a relationship with the High School that supported teen ownership of the project.
-    The signs were made in a prison-based factory.
-    Workers could get hooked into the project through Diversion or the Dept. of Labor.

Funding for a potential part-time staff:
-    Mostly for coordinating youth involvement.
-    We’ll make up an application for a Mazur grant.
o    Geoff and Scott will write up a draft
o    Geoff will talk to Community Connections folk
o    Colin will talk to ETM Bike Group about possible cooperation
-    Vermont Community Fund was mentioned as a future possible funding source

Physical aspects of the project:
-    Freeride folks will look into thorn-resistant tires and tubes
-    The idea of a trailer on one of the community bikes, or rental/borrow trailer was brought up
-    Drop point rack location brainstorm: bus stop, library, city hall, food coop, state house.

Vision:
-    Stan will start a draft, to be revised over email

No next meeting time was set. Plans were made to research weather for a warm, bright day when skylights won’t be covered in snow to dig through our stockpile to find bikes and parts for the project.

12/20/07 Meeting Minutes for the Community Bike Project

In attendance: Colin Gunn, Matt Brittenham, Stan Brinkerhoff, was Alec there? maybe Alec Hill

We first outlined the following categories of concerns (project needs), all of which are tied into one another, but will be good to take on separately at times:

- Bike recovery/accounting/tracking
- Where the bikes “live” and how they come and go
- Maintenance
- How the bikes are built
- PR
- Organizational process
- Timeline – first year and beyond
- Funding
- Preventing total disappearance

Then we had a long discussion about these topics. The following ideas were floated:
- Where they live/recovery/maintenance: We could have 3 or 4 racks in town designated as community bike racks. Volunteers would check the racks weekly and enter findings into a centralized (web-based) database which would tell us when a bike is missing for a long period, or what bikes need work.
- How the bikes are built: We discussed how to paint them if at all (the minimum it would take to designate them as community bikes). The triangle signs would explain the project, intended use, contact info for maintenance, and bike number. They can all have baskets for shopping use. We started finding cheap mountain bike frames with horizontal dropouts (so they can be single-speed) everywhere, and all thought this should be the way to go.
- PR: We didn’t talk much about this, but thought that the name should encourage valued community ownership (more than Freeride).

Then we talked about the next steps. We kicked around all of the great things that this project could entail if there was a lot of organizational energy behind it, and discussed whether we should look into funding a position for someone to oversee the program, but decided that we could easily meet and exceed the agreements of our initial New England Grassroots Environmental Fund grant relying on volunteer energy alone.

We decided to look for more bike frames that meet our ideals, do some research, and reconvene at some point in January, extending the invitation to everyone else who had expressed interest. Research included: Giant bike trailers, other community bike projects (and Montpelier’s last one), school/community connections employees who may be able to facilitate getting middle and high school students involved, web-based databases.

Nov/Dec 2007 Freeride Montpelier General Membership Meeting

Announcements:
-    The tallbike is missing, since the Halloween ride!
-    Blinky solstice ride is on the 21st
-    The steering team is looking for more members (see draft process below)

Other committees:
-    Community bike team: Nobody to join, will continue to work on it as steering team and try to recruit.
-    Weatherization task force: Nobody to join, ended up just making plans to make improvements ourselves during shifts.

Steering decisions:
-    Joining the steering team: Regular volunteers may join the steering committee by making a commitment and attending two steering committee meetings.

Show up at Freeride Bike coop 89 Barre Street at 4 pm to decorate bikes, then ride through town with us Decked out in lights to celebrate the solstice, and the return of the sun!Bring as many light sources as you can and a winter ready bike. If you don’t want to ride your bike in the snow, you can borrow one of our bikes for the ride. We’ll be cecorating bikes from 4pm,a nd the ride will depart at 5pm.We’ll have blinkie lights,a nd amybe some other light sources for sale as a fund raiser, but bring any and all bike compatible light sources you might have. Glowsticks? Candle lanterns? Batter powered christmas lights? Whatever you’ve got we want to light up the streets of Montpelier in celebration of winter, the solstice, and the coming return of the sun!

I’ve been an all-winter bike rider for several years now. A couple of Articles at Planet Green just reminded me It’s really time to talk about winter riding.

Here are a few of tips I’ve found for winter riding:

1. Get a beater bike. Salt and slush can be murder on a nice bike, if you love your bike, get another one to ride in the winter. My winter bike is on it’s 4th year in that role, and it’s still quite functional but it’s noowhere near as pretty as it once was. Old mountain bikes work well, because cheap knobby tires are plentiful, and they do well in snowy conditions. Winter riding is murder on drive trains and bearings, so expect to replace things like chains and freewheels seasonally.
2. Get some fenders. Full coverage fenders keep the snow from spraying your back and feet, that makes a huge difference in rainy or snowy weather.
3. Change your tires. Nothing short of metal studded snow tires will make much difference on glare ice, but they are expensive. A cheap set of knobby mountain bike tires will do a LOT better in the snow than smooth road tires. Widely spaced aggressive knobs work well, because they have less tendency to load up with snow. While they are more plentiful in 26″ mountain bike sizes, you can also get knobby tires in 700c, and 27″ road bike sizes.
4. Lubricate liberally and frequently. Salt and slush will make short work of drive train parts, and bearings. Lub will wash off your chain in no time. When you pack your bearings, use lots of waterproof grease, and keep that chain lubed up. I frequently spray my bike down with penetrating oil in the winter to remove grit, then reapply a good quality chain lube over the top. If you ride every week you will want to lube your chain at least once a week. more if it starts to look dry or rusty.
5. Don’t bring your bike inside. Rust is a reaction of water and air, and it’s accelerated by salt, but your bike can’t rust if the water on it is frozen. You’ll get lots of rust over the winter, but bringing your bike inside and letting all that slush and ice melt will only make it worse. Also thawing and refreezing will allow ice to get in places you don’t want it like inside cable housings, so avoid bringing your bike inside unless you’re planning to clean and relube it.
6. Dress for the weather. It’s best not to dress TOO warmly when riding, but wind chill can be a literal pain, and cold leg muscles don’t like to work. I like to try to get some wind protection, especially for my hands and face, and I wear long johns at anything below 20º F
7. Use Lights. The days are short, and visibility isn’t very good sometimes even in broad daylight. A set of blinkie lights front and rear can help make sure drivers see you. In the interest of promoting safe winter riding we’re providing blinkie light sets at the coop at the reduced cost of $6 a set.

I’d love to see more bikes on the road this winter, and I’d love some company for my Tuesday night shifts at the Coop. So why not come by next Tuesday or Thursday evening. We can help get your bike ready for winter, or help you find a good winter bike from our stock of refurbished bike, and if you’re riding regularly, you might want to stop by for a few minutes once a week just to relube your cables and drive train.

Check this out. A Continuously Variable Transmission on a bike…designed by Leonardo Da Vinci himself.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/recreation/item_98.html

love,
Spencer

Make the most of your consumer dollars on Friday and Saturday November 23th and 24th. Buy a recycled bike from Freeride Montpelier, and help support cycling, recycling, and transportation alternatives in our community. We are having a fall bike sale at Freeride Montpelier Bike Coop. Cutting our already low prices by another 30% makes this a great time to get a nice used bike for yourself, or as a gift. It will also support Freeride, help us make some room in our space, and help keep the rent paid and the heat on through the winter months, so that we can have all those great winter workshops we’ve been planning. Come on Down between 1:00 and 6:00pm have some hot cocoa with us, check out some bikes, check out our space if you haven’t yet been down. We are at 89 Barre St right next to Fischer Auto Parts, around the back.

Winter biking is possible! But don’t wreck your nice bike riding it around in the salt and slush, come build up a cheap winter bike with us! Our winter hours through season will be Tuesday and Thursday nights, 6pm to 8pm. Learn tips like keeping your tires at low pressure to improve traction, and using a lot of lubrication to prevent rusty, frozen components. You’ve got to watch yourself on the ice, but it beats shoveling your driveway every morning!