Free Bike Tune-Up at the South Perry Street Fair
19 July 08 07:55 PM | Liza | 1 comment(s)
i saw an old friend, lisa, at the free tune-up event today. she was with her family at the fair. zoe showed me her balloon doggie. lisa came over to say hi, and asked if i always worked. the last time we saw each other was when she stopped by where i work to ask about a new bike. she was smiling when she asked me this question, and i smiled when i responded, "this isn't work. this is fun!" ask any of the P2P volunteers that were there today, and they'll tell you the same thing: we had a ball! it's exhausting, rewarding, satisfying, and totally enjoyable to do a tune-up event. but a lot like when you cook a yummy meal for your friends. you feel happy providing something homemade that brings people together and nurtures the soul. i feel the same way about these tune-up events. we provide something good, but we get so much happiness in return. beth, mike, john, ken, ben, jace and klay worked so smoothly together today. it was awesome being a part of it all. The Shop hosted us at their spot from 10-2, just like they did last year. Thanks guys for the awning, the bottomless container of cold water, and the huge chunk of space in your parking lot. don't forget to check out the summer movies at the Shop this summer. Top Gun shows tonight at dusk! http://www.theshop.bz/
P2P Fundraiser a Huge Success!
12 July 08 12:10 PM | Liza | with no comments
We couldn't have asked for a better fundraising event! What fun with awesome food and great company! Char Zyskowski and Karen Copeland of Apple Charlotte Cooking and Catering Co. donated their time and super cheffing skills to cook the best cajun spiced meal ever. Former Apple Charlotte graduate students also helped with the food preparation. The muffeletta knocked our socks off! Yummy grilled veggies, freshly-baked chiabatta, salty olive tapenade and melted jack cheese sealed the signature New Orleans sandwich. Each bite was the perfect combination of salty/sweet, soft and crunchy. Apple Charlotte also prepared red beans and rice, jambalaya, cornbread, chocolate bourbon cake and sweetened ice tea for over 30 people. WOW! Odem Corps donated wine for the event. Conbined with pefect summer weather and relaxed outdoor dining, we felt like the luckiest bunch of cyclists on the planet :) The ticket sales brought in the money we needed to pay for our legal fees. Now, pedals2people is sending our 501c3 packet off to the federal government. we'll be one step closer to building a community cycling center. Thanks so much to everyone who attended and participated. you made our whole year!
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Garage Guidelines
06 July 08 10:09 PM | John | 2 comment(s)

 

Right now our P2P space is a donated garage in a residential neighborhood. At some point, we'd like to have a space closer to downtown in a more retail/commercial type area. We're grateful for our space right now and we want to keep it.

Location 

Our space is a garage is in the alley behind the house at 4218 S Garfield.

Please do not disturb the owners of the home, you can find us in the alley between Garfield and Scott streets and between 43rd and 42nd ave. Generally, we're open to the public on Mon/Weds nights from 6-9pm. Check our event calendar to make sure we'll be there.

Summer Garage Schedule

Summer is busier than other months, so to make sure we're getting our work done as well as providing a DIY space, here's how we will be scheduling garage time for the summer:

 

  • Donations welcome 6-8:30, Mondays and Wednesdays
  • Volunteer work from 6-7:30; no DIY'ers during this time please
  • DIY bike time and tool use from 7:30 - 8:30
  • Clean- up 8:45-9

Dropping In

We love having drop-in volunteers. If you come up to the garage unannounced ("drop ins"), you must be either volunteering or coming to do DIY work on your bike. At the space we have right now, we can't have general hanging around. If you drive, find a place outside the alley to park.

DIY Info

There are two kinds of DIY'ers.
 
#1 DIY space/tool renter: If you are doing a project that requires a bike stand and more than basic tools, then please consider paying for the space/tools.
 
DIY Space and tool rental $10/hour, 1/2 hour minimum. This gets you a stand and access to the master work bench and generally the assistance of a volunteer mechanic. We typically only have one or two stands open at a time. If we get too many DIYers we'll start scheduling folks in. Only paying DIY'ers can have unfettered access to the master tool bench.
 
#2 Drop-in fixes: For minor fixes (flats, tweaks, tightens, adjustments, etc), it's a voluntary donation kind of deal.
 
Drop-in's work on bikes outside the garage without a stand. For tools, you can borrow one "stripping bucket" of tools to use. The stripping bucket contains some basic tools (hex wrenches, screw drivers, crescent wrenches, etc) that can fix basic bike issues. If you're a drop-in fixing up your bike, please do not help yourself to master work bench tools or any parts in the garage without assistance from a mechanic volunteer. If you're able, consider donating some small amount for the use of the tools and garage resources.
 
Our goal is to get you riding your bike, not to squeeze every penny out of you, but really: there's no such thing as a free lunch. We take trades of all kinds and volunteer time as payment too.
 
 
Buying Stuff - Used Parts - New Parts
 
Buying stuff: the garage is not really set up for retail sales. Generally, we encourage folks with means to go to a local bike shop and buy stuff. However, we also think it's important to recycle and reuse where ever possible, so we like to sell our used parts/components to industrious people. We sell a few new things (cables and housing mainly) -- but only if you're doing a bike build. We do not sell new parts/components for below retail cost. 
 
You can come and buy stuff, but you can't dig/browse/etc unattended. Also, people looking to buy stuff are the last priority behind donation drop offs, volunteer management, etc. When a volunteer has time, the volunteer can go through stuff with the person looking to buy stuff. The garage is too small to have people wandering through and browsing while we try to work.
 
The best way to get parts when it's busy (spring/summer) is to send email to pedals2people@gmail.com and send us a list. We can help you and maybe get a pile going for you before you get there.
 
A basic price list is here.
 
 Garage Lead
 
All garage nights will have a Garage Lead. This person is in charge of keeping the flow going and making sure all volunteers are busy, donation drop offs are tended to, and any special events are squared away. The Garage Lead handles the money and makes sure everything is properly locked at the end of the night. The Garage Lead also must fill out the Wrap-Up sheet at the end of the night.
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Pride Parade 2008
20 June 08 01:37 AM | Tiffany | with no comments

Thank you to everyone who Joined us for Spokane Pride this year. We all had a really great time. The turn out for the event was amazing. It was reported to have doubled since last year! Pedals 2 People won 2nd place for our entry in the Parade this year....$50 prize. Great job Bikers!

Here is a link to a video with some of the photos (most of which were taken by Beth...thank you): http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn61/Pedals2P/?action=view&current=P2Pvideo.flv

OutSpokane Pride Parade: June 14th
26 May 08 08:42 PM | John

This parade is special for P2P. This parade was sort of our official outing as an organization last year. I'm pretty sure it was our first official P2P event. And it was a huge success. I think we had about 25 cyclists show up get gussied up and ride. It's a fun event.

You don't have to be gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered to ride. I waxed philosophic on this event a while back.

We really want to blow the roof off the sucka this year with participation. I think doubling the number to 50 cyclists would be a huge success, but what if we could get 100?

Here's how it works:

June 14th, Saturday.

9:00 AM: show up in the Civic Theater (Howard and Dean -- across from the arena) parking lot to decorate your bike. You MUST bring some decorations to share with others. This is what makes it work. Crepe paper, streamers, colorful fabrics, whatever. Just find stuff in your house that's colorful and can be taped and zip-tied to a bike. Tape, zip ties, and pipe cleaners are handy too.

10:30 AM: we move, en mass, through Riverfront Park, to the staging area on Post. Or Wall.

11-12: hang out and enjoy the entertainment. My favorite part of the parade last year was the hanging around before it started. There's a ton of activity and craziness.

12: do the parade. Bring some candy or other goodies to toss out to the kids.

Speaking of kids: this is a family event.

Pictures of Pedals2People at last year's OutSpokane parade

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Bike To Work Week
12 May 08 11:08 AM | John

It's BTW week. This morning's breakfast in Riverfront Park was a huge success. At least 200 people on a cold, damp morning. As soon as we figure out what's going on with pictures on our blog here, we'll get some photos up.

Upcoming P2P BTW events:

-- P2Pers will be roaming the streets looking for bike commuters. We'll have a Bumble Bar to give away to each person we meet. And if they need minor adjustment/air or whatver, we'll try to help.

-- Weds night at REI. 7pm. Dave Peckham, from Village Bike Project, will be showing a free screening of Ayamye. We'll have a trailer there to take donated bikes.

-- Friday afternoon: 4:30-6:30 -- Steam Plant BTW wrap up party. P2P will not have an official deal at this event, but we'll all be there enjoying a local beer from CdA brewing co.

Dig the new site
06 May 08 09:21 PM | John

Thanks to Kathrine Horecny, a grad student at EWU for a great design and implementation of the new P2P website. It looks great. When you get work for free, you take what you can get when you can get it. In this case however, Kathrine delivered and delivered quickly. We're so thrilled with the site. Thanks again Kathrine. And thanks to professors Mindy Breen and Anthony Flinn out at EWU for getting the P2P website project in the pipeline and helping us out.

An important part of the project was the blog integration work, so that the frist 250 characters of each blog post shows up on the home page and on the "blog" page of the site. This work was done by my friend Alex Wetmore, whose selfless generosity truly knows no bounds. He also hosts the Pedals2People site and blog, CyclingSpokane forum, and JohnDogFood.com on a server in his basement for me...not to mention bikelist.org, and many other sites. He does this all for free.

P2P Upcoming Events
30 April 08 03:01 PM | Liza

 

tomorrow, it'll be May and that means bike to work (BTW) month--whoo-hoo!

in celebration of bikes, and commuting, and springtime, and all things right and good in this world (getting a little carried away i guess), we're taking part in some cool events.

  • Monday, May 12th, 7-9 am: P2P will be in riverfront park near the carousel helping to fix bikes for BTW commuters. there will also be a pancake breakfast, so come get some fuel, and then ride to work.
  • Wednesday, May 14th, 7pm: REI will be host a ffree showing of Ayamye, the Village Bicycle Project's powerful documentary about their efforts to bring affordable, reliable transportation to people in ghana, africa. David Peckham will be there to answer questions and discuss his experiences in ghana. please come to the showing upstairs in the clinic room. 1125 N Monroe.
  • Wednesday, May 14th, 6:30-8:30pm: we will be collecting bikes for the Village Bicycle Project, if you have an old bike collecting dust somewhere, please bring it REI on May 14th so it can go to a good home. we're only accepting adult bikes in repairable condition. here's some info on acceptable bikes. 
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Success: West Central Bike Tune Up
28 April 08 08:59 PM | John

 

The P2P mobile bike shop was at AM Cannon on Saturday for the West Central Neighbor Days doing Free Bike Tune-Ups. I wasn't there, but it sounded like a success. We fixed up about 40 bikes and even got a few donations.

The volunteers: Stuart, Mike, Ben, Beth, Noah, Hank, Jeff, and Charlie.

Mr FBC blogged about here. And Mr Gigowiz blogged on it here.

Hank took a bunch of pics. I put a few here.

This is the first free bike tune-up that I was not at. We were also missing Ken and Liza.

As we build this organization, it's stuff like this that is really satisfying -- to pull off a good event like this while a core chunk of our volunteers are away -- and still have it be a success.

Next up. BTW week in mid-May. We need to schedule out our June and July Free Bike Tune-Ups too.

You can see our other up-coming events at our projects page.

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Good Weekend
21 April 08 07:55 PM | John

 

(Photos: Michael Conely)

This was banner weekend for P2P.

On Saturday, our superhero volunteer Ken masterminded a garage sale. I doubted him. I shall never doubt again. We started with about 20 bikes: all of them single speeds or 3-speeds. Over the last couple weeks our volunteers have been learning how to clean and repack bearings on these bikes. Therefore, most of the adult bikes had fresh bottom brackets, hubs, and headsets. Our garage sale opened at 10 am. By 10:30, all but 3 or 4 of the bikes were gone. Crazy.

(photos: Superhero)

Sunday, we had the Paris-Roubaix celebration. It was crazy wonderful. We absolutely packed Benniditos to the gills. There were many bikes and many bike people. It was really great. I also got to have my first beer since New Year's Eve. That was really great too.

Klay took some nice pics and posted them here. She also posted some of Micheal Conely's pics here.

(crappy phone photos: John)

I don't know what we ended up raising for the Paris-Roubaix thing yet, but between the two, I think we'll come out with a good chunk of change.

This will go straight to our 501(c)(3) fund. In fact, Liza officially registered P2P's articles of incorporation with the State of WA today. Next step: hand over our huge pile of 1023 paperwork to our lawyers. If all goes well we should have it off to the IRS by mid-May.

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Spring Cleaning Garage Sale: This Sat
16 April 08 01:12 PM | John
We're having a quick garage sale this Saturday.

When: Sat, April 19th
Time: from 10 am to 2 PM
Where: at our donated garage space on the south hill. The detached garage is located in the alley behind the house at 4218 S Garfield.

PLEASE - Don't go knocking on the door of the house. Go through the alley between Scott and Garfield: this is a donated space. We don't want to disturb the owners of the house.

*******************

We have a bunch of vintage single speed, 3-speed, and kid bikes (think ape-hangers and banana seats) that we need to clear out. None of these are super sweet collectors, but they're great for tooling around the neighborhood and cruising the Centennial Trail.

On many of the adult bikes, and a few of the kid bikes, we've cleaned and repacked the bottom brackets, headsets, and hubs.

All bikes sold as-is.

Our goal is to get you riding, so we're selling these cheap: $5-$40. And half-price on most at 1pm. All offers considered. Cash only.

Rain or shine we'll be there at 10 AM.

Please don't show up early. There is no ebay fodder here.
P2P Presentation at REI this Sunday
11 April 08 08:46 PM | Liza


 

pedals2people will do a short presentation at REI this sunday at 12: your basic slide show in power point format. don't worry. i'll keep it short and sweet. i'll give some dates for our upcoming events, like the P2P annual yard sale where we'll be selling some surplus parts and bikes. i'll also have patches for sale. they're pretty cool.

REI will host a ride at 11am through Riverfront and down the trail, and there are lots of other presentations scheduled for this sunday's Cycle Fest.

if you're on your bike cruising around in the predicted 65 degree weather (wow!), stop by for a free bike check-up.

*art credit to andy singer* 

April 20th: Take a ride to Benniditos Pizza South
02 April 08 08:46 PM | John

 

(Go here to open pdf/printable version of this picture in a new window. Print a flyer and hang one in your neighborhood!)

This is an idea we've been thinking about for a while: how do we get a bunch of cyclists to go and hang out on a Sunday afternoon.

 The idea struck when Taylor posted a YouTube video of Paris-Roubaix 1986 finish at the EPM blog.

While we're not big race fans, the idea of Paris-Roubaix has always had a draw: it's a one-day race along the cobblestone back roads of France. It's a brutal race. Something like 135 cyclists started the race last year and around 40 ended up finishing. It's often muddy, lots of flat tires, and the finish is always exciting.

 Chris, up at Benniditos, has agreed to show this race for us on his fancy new big TVs on April 20th, when the race airs.

The idea is to get as many people on bikes to Benniditos as we can. The pizza, beer, and race is a generic draw to get cyclist there. But really, we're looking forward to hanging out with the wide variety of bike folks that we run into. Think of it as a Bike Summit.

There's no cover charge or any fee. Just order lots of beer and pizza and if Chris does well, he'll donate a chunk to P2P.

You are encouraged to gather your friends and take a ride along some cobble stone (from downtown, take Jefferson, then Adams up the south hill to meet this requirement) and be at Benniditos by 1PM.

When that's done, go home and take a nap, or save some energy for the monthly FBC ride, which is also happening on April 20th.

A great bike day through and through.

 

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Bike Donation
28 March 08 09:37 AM | John

 

This bike is a Bruce Gordon. On the quality bike scale, Bruce Gordon bikes are way up there. This bike was donated to to P2P about a week ago.

If you know bikes and you know how special Bruce Gordon bikes are, you'd probably assume that the guy who donated this to us was an eccentric millionaire that just got tired of his bike. The fact is, this bike was donated to us by a bike mechanic from REI. He's one of those monk-type dudes that just live super simply. This was his main ride for the last couple years. He recently picked up a Marin. He moved all the parts that were on this bike onto the Marin, and put all the Marin parts onto the Bruce Gordon.

We'll likely strip the bike down and sell the frame set + front Bruce Gordon rack (likely the best production front low rider rack around) as a set. The components don't really match the frame quality-wise, so a person that would buy the frame would likely ditch the components anyway. We can use the new components on other bikes in our shop.

To the guy the donated this bike: thanks.

Hopefully this bike will help pay for a good chunk of our 501(c)(3) application process, which may not sound so sexy, but it is the most important short term step to P2P's long-term financial security.

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Valley Bike Drop-Off a Success
23 March 08 06:15 PM | John

Thanks to Ron's Drive In for providing a parking lot. They even offered us free burgers. Cool place.

We collected about 30 bikes. It was nice to sit and chat with friends for 5 hours on a blustery Saturday morning. Normally, Saturdays are packed to the hilt with running around, house stuff, kid stuff, other stuff... and maybe if you're lucky you can squeeze a ride in. So just sitting and chatting and drinking coffee was a nice break.

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