New community bike space looking for location and members
Laila Davis
This is from a friend of mine who's looking to start a D.I.Y. bike space. Please contact him if you have any info on space and forward to other folks. He doesn't mention it here, but this bike collective is new and they're looking for people to join it. So if the project sounds interesting to you, contact him and attend a meeting. No bike-repair experience necessary, just an interest. And they're great folks.
Laila
Hi. My name is Erik Fahlstrom.
WHO WE ARE/HISTORY: I'm part of a bicycle project that started about a month before the RNC in order to bicycle-ize people coming into town to exercise their free speech (to the degree they were allowed to). From the beginning we had longer term goals in mind. We wanted to use the energy of the RNC to build our capacity to be a resource to the Minneapolis community at large. From our temporary location in the Purity Bakery Building on 5th ave. and 36th St. we built and helped other people build over 300 bicycles in one month. All for free. We asked that people return the bicycles to us afterwards so we could use these bikes in Minneapolis for a continuing bike project. Over 100 were returned to us. For the last month or so we've been fixing and selling some of our bikes for affordable prices on craigslist to raise some more money for our project ..... we've been a bit overwhelmed with how much of demand there is for affordable bicycles! We've
been able to raise enough money to start considering opening up shop.
WHAT THAT WOULD LOOK LIKE: We're looking to open up a shop that serves a neighborhood. A shop that teaches cheap (or free) classes to people who don't yet know how to work on their bike. A shop where people could build a bicycle for free if need be. A shop that has open hours where people can come in and use the shop's tools for free, where the volunteers would be there not to fix bicycles for people but to help others learn to fix their own bicycles. A shop where groups of people who are traditionally not welcome in D.I.Y. spaces feel welcome (queers, youth, minorities of all kinds, poor folk, women .......). A shop that also sells bicycles for affordable prices and accept donations for the use of the shop/parts. Sounds alright .... right?
WHAT WE NEED: A physical space. We've been looking at different spaces around South Minneapolis and haven't yet found the right one. We're looking for a space in or around Phillips (where most of us live). A storefront would be great ..... but I've been a part of similar shops that operate out of basements of commercial space. A space in a community center would be amazing, a space in a church would be great. Any public space that is inviting to all types of people would be ideal. Cheap would be even better ... none of us are getting paid ... and the less money we pay in rent means more money coming back into the shop for programs.
WHAT YOU COULD DO: House us in your community center, send this email to people who may have a space for us/would be interested in this project/might know people who would be interested, donate bicycles to us, provide us with space to teach classes in in the meantime before we get the shop up and running, or just tell everyone you know. Thanks for your time. You can call or email.
Thank you kindly,
Erik Fahlstrom
612-437-2334
jaspe...@hotmail.com