SBK's winter blowout!
Ryan Sharpe
While our normal shifts have been running smoothly and we've got more
volunteers on staff, we're working behind the scenes to improve our
maintenance and training as well as offering a bit more to the community
than bottomless vats of hub grease and $5 used tires.
So, in the next few months, you can look forward to a few changes:
More frequent classes
Teaching
bike maintenance is a big part of our mission. Though we haven't been
as up on that as we'd like, we'll be ending 2011 with a wealth of
classes. We're offering our basic maintenance class once a month
starting on November 20. Before that, we'll have a few other classes
on winterizing your bike (October 30), what to look for when buying a
bike on Craigslist (November 6), and overhauling your hubs (no date
set). We'll have more details very soon.
Monthly SBK rides
For the
first time in what seems like forever, we put down our wrenches for a
day last September and took off to ride those two-wheeled contraptions
we love so much. We had such a great time, we've decided to make that
an ongoing thing. So look forward to more SBK rides as we shut down a
different shift each month to get a little quality time in the saddle
and out with friends. If you show up this Wednesday, October 19, bring
a bike that's ready to ride, cause we ain't gonna be wrenching!
More volunteer hours and training opportunities
Just like our public classes have tapered
off, so did our volunteer time, but that's all changing. We're
planning on opening our shop more often to our underpaid and overworked
volunteer staff, to give them more chances to work on their own
projects, get more experience wrenching on different bikes, and to help
beef up the camaraderie that makes our shop so much fun already.
Special events
Last month's inaugural Bicyclette!
-- shop time exclusively for our female and LGBT patrons -- humbled us
with the turnout and energy, and we're happy to see it take off on the
third Monday of each month, including tomorrow, October 16, from 6PM to
9PM.
And like last year, we'll be closing down again this Christmas and New Years weeks to work on the shop itself. This year, we're looking for a few artists to help us use up a few gallons of paint we've had donated. If you'd like to help out but you're handier with a hammer than a brush, give us a buzz; we'll have plenty of projects to work on.
--
Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen
http://sacbikekitchen.org/
1915 I Street, Midtown Sacramento
Open Tu 6-9p, We 6-9p, Th 6-9p, Fr 10a-2p (kids 6-8p), Sa 12-4p