Bike to Work (and School) Day

Davey Oil, workin' it.

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We've got cycling caps.

We're swimming in a sea of custom Bike Works cycling caps.

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To Infinity and Beyond (or to Vashon at least)

Today I met up with Bike Works co-worker and old friend Muuqi to go for a bike ride. For me, it was a chance to test out the new gearing on my Schwinn Le Tour single speed road bike. For Muuqi, it was a chance for him to grill me with interview questions for his blog.

My Schwinn has been my bad-weather commuting bike for about five years. In Southern Oregon, I could run pretty big gearing. Here in Seattle, it's become clear that the same gearing wouldn't work. So I went and changed it to a 42x16. It's still not a small gear, but it means I can still cruise along Lake Washington at a pretty good clip. And the even number of teeth on both the chainring and the rear cog (a freewheel in my case)? I read this, and like all Sheldon wisdom it makes perfect sense.

Muuqi is writing a series of bios on his blog, and conducting interviews for those bios. Each interviewee will be someone who is a cyclist, who he's known for a long time and who's influenced him in some way. I think that's the idea anyway.

Muuqi influences me in a big way. He's taught me not to take cycling too seriously (in a good way), and this ride was not unlike our typical ride in that it contained laughing and merriment and breaks to pet horses.

The gearing will do for Seattle. But we happened to head out to Alki and then get the urge to take the ferry to Vashon. On Vashon, right off the ferry, is a monster hill. I had read about it in this book, and apparently no geological event in the last 29 years (since the book was written) has altered Vashon's topography. In addition to this first hill, there's another tough one near the southern tip of the island, and some steep kickers as we headed east towards the end of our ride. But hills aside, Vashon is a fantastic place to ride. Little or no traffic, lots of green, some windy climbs and descents, and clean sea breezes. Nice horses too.

Custom build bliss

We just finished this custom build of a Bianchi Eros frame with Campy 10 speed shifting. The result? One happy customer.

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Warehouse Sale Follow-up (and other related news)

The warehouse sale was one heck of a success! Thanks to awesome volunteers, great work by staff and a whole bunch of customers, we raised over $4,400 for Bike Works. A ton of people who had never been to Bike Works before showed up for the sale. As an added bonus, we cleared some space in our warehouse and attic. A really, really wonderful day. Thanks to everybody for spreading the word, volunteering, and coming to the sale!


Speaking of warehouses, we have finally pulled the trigger on a new location for the Bike Works warehouse! While our current warehouse space has been great and has served us well in many ways, due to a number of reasons we have found ourselves with the need to move to a different space. After weeks of searching and plenty of teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling, we have settled on a spot a block behind Bike Works. If you heard a loud gushing of air late last week, that was probably our collective sighs of relief at the positive outcome of this dilemma.


Last, but not least, we are all so thankful and humbled by the amazing community response to our announcement about the burglaries. We have had an in-pouring of bicycles and parts, more monetary donations than usual, and about as many volunteer applications as Davey can process. Thank you to everyone and anyone that has helped us out in any way! You all have helped turn a negative event into an unquestionably positive one.

Burglaries at Bike Works

Bikes stolen from Bike Works yard – we need your help
We are sad to report that over the last few weeks donated bikes have been stolen from the yard behind Bike Works. The stolen bicycles were destined to be put back into the community in May at this year’s Kids’ Bike Swap. We lost a large pile of bikes – an estimated $1,500 value – that have been worked on since September during our volunteer repair nights and youth Earn-a-Bike classes and drop-in hours. With the KBS now just 4 months away, this is a big setback for us.

We are reaching out to our community to help! All of the bikes that were stolen were “adult” sized bikes for older youth (that are harder for us to collect, take longer to fix, and are worth more money). In the next three months, we hope to build our pile of bikes back up to what it was! Here is what we need:

• Good condition adult bikes - smaller mountain bikes (26” wheels) and road bikes (700 cm. wheels) especially.
• Good condition 24” wheeled bikes. If you have a bike to donate, contact Donald at recycling@bikeworks.org or call our shop during business hours at 206.725.9408 x3
• Volunteers who can repair bikes – specifically volunteers with shop level mechanic expertise. If you are interested in repairing bikes, contact Davey at volunteers@bikeworks.org or 206.725.9408 x2
• Any other donation (monetary or material) that can help us offset our loss. To donate to Bike Works, click here.

For now, we’ve improved the security in the backyard with more locks and tarps and are considering adding barbed wire (an additional incurred cost of $900). We have also spoken with neighbor businesses to help us keep an eye out when staff aren’t here, and are continuing to strategize about a long-term solution! We’d love to hear ideas if you have them.


2010 Classes Have Begun
On a more positive note, our Earn-a-Bike classes, Adult repair classes and partnerships have begun for 2010! Over the winter a volunteer helped us build a fourth workbench in our classroom, allowing us to increase the size of our classes and work with more young people. (Thank you, Lanham!)


Warehouse Sale
The Bike Works Warehouse has too much stuff! There will be a Bike Works Warehouse Sale, January 23rd 11am to 5pm. We will be selling parts and as-is bikes for low, low prices! This will help us clear up space in the classroom and in the warehouse as well as raise some much needed revenue. Cash only, please. Spread the word and come check it out!


Thanks for being part of the Bike Works family,
Bike Works Staff

Cast Your Vote for the Best Bike Shop

The Evening Magazine folks are doing their annual Best of Western Washington Poll and they have a Bike Shop category. As of 9/22/09 Bike Works is ranked number 4, which is amazing since we are tiny. But if you like us, please go and vote for us!

You can see the current standings and vote at: http://tinyurl.com/luu6jl

Thanks,

The Bike Works Crew