This blog has a new home

Please note that the Bristol Bike Project blog is still alive, but has now moved. For more recent blog updates go to The Bristol Bike Project website here... http://www.thebristolbikeproject.org/?page_id=4

Thanks.

John O'Groats to Land's End

We recently received a kind donation from Emily & Chris who cycled from John O'Groats to Land's End and decided to raise money for the project in the process.

"The idea came about as a bit of a joke originally and everybody, including bike shop staff and our supportive parents thought we probably wouldn't make it", says Emily, "We met some of the most amazing people- the Laird of the Loch (a guy that lives in a boat on Holy Loch), a retired couple that overtook us on mountain bikes then fed us green tea, cherries and popcorn, the friendliest Dutch couple imaginable and some crazy folk in Bristol who led us to the discovery of the most incredible falafel takeaway place! It rained 28 out of 30 days and we cycled 1125 miles on bikes that have the combined age of 100".

"My friends kept telling me that I should raise some sponsorship money for it but I couldn't think of a charity that particularly stood out and then I heard about The Bristol Bike Project and was reminded by an article I saw in the Guardian newspaper. Basically, I think what they do is great and if I didn't live about 200 miles away I'd go down and get my hands covered in bike grease helping out! So Instead, I thought about doing the ride to raise money for the bike project".

A HUGE thank you to Emily & Chris for their kind donation - it really does make a difference and allows us to continue doing the work that we are.

Petition for Aziz - Please sign....

Abdul Aziz - the gentleman from Afghanistan who features in the Bristol Bike project short film - is being threatened with being returned to Afghanistan against his wishes and fears that he will be tracked down and executed by the Taliban if he returns. As such, we have set up an online petition to raise support for him.

Here is the link to the petition site : it would be great if you could sign it and spread the word and get friends and family to sign it too - having recently spoken to Bristol Refugee Rights, this sort of thing really can make a difference.

http://www.petitiononline.com/A1359943/petition.html

many thanks in advance for your time and support.

The Bristol Bike Project Exhibition

To coincide with Bristol's first two-week Cycling Festival, we have been asked to be part of a cycling-inspired, 2 week exhibition at the Howies store in Bristol. We will be exhibiting photographic prints and illustrations drawn from the last year and a half, plus we will have tshirts and badges for sell!

The opening night is Friday 10th September from 7-10pm and is free entry. See you there!

Project Group Ride : All Welcome!

We are having a group ride to coincide with Bristol's first Bicycle Festival to celebrate almost 2 years of the project and the fact that we have just repaired and given out our 300th bicycle!

So come and join us for a short, circular ride around Bristol, taking in Ashton Court and Durdham Downs, with a picnic en route. We are meeting at 11am on Saturday 11th September outside the workshop on city road and all are welcome - bring food for a picnic if you wish! See you there.....

Short Film #1 : Sean from Bristol Drugs Project

This is the first in what we hope to be a series of short 4 minute films about some of the people we work with at The Bristol Bike Project. This first film features Sean from Bristol Drugs Project who we worked with recently and who was happy to talk to us about how having a bicycle has helped him in his everyday life. We hope you enjoy it.

Watch the film here!

A Busy Weekend for the Project!

Phew, what a busy bicycle weekend!

The organisers of St Werburghs Farm Summer Fair invited us down on Saturday to be on hand to help people fix up any problems they had with their bikes or simply just to inflate tyres and oil chains! It was a fantastic day - the sun stayed out, our friends Cap'n Bikebeard made an appearance with their pedal-powered soundsystem, the tall bikes were in full effect and we met a bunch of very lovely people in the process....thanks to all - we look forward to the next one!!

Sunday morning was Bristol's first naked bike ride, a peaceful, imaginative and fun protest against oil dependency and car culture. A few of our team made a spectacular appearance, all on tall bikes and were part of a 200-strong bicycle street party!

And finally, Sunday afternoon saw us head down to the opening celebrations of Bristol Refugee Week in Queen's Square to do a spot more bike maintenance and help spread the word about the project. And of course, letting people have a go on the tall bikes!

'Saddled with Success' Guardian article

See the article about the project featured in the Guardian Newspaper here

boneshaker magazine issue1 out now!

A couple of the crew here at the bristol bike project have been inspired to start a magazine! boneshaker magazine is a collection of articles, stories and anecdotes about people and projects doing great things with bicycles. Full to the brim with photography and illustration, we hope that it will both inspire and entertain, raise awareness and bring a smile to your face…and appeal to both bike-heads and to those who may not yet even have experienced the true joy and freedom that can be found from our two-wheeled friends.

It will be available nationally soon, but in the meantime pick up your copy in Bristol from one of the following: the arnolfini, the here shop, jake's bikes, Howies, bristol bike workshop and Bike. Happy reading!

The Bristol Bike Project goes to New York!!

We are very pleased to announce that 'The Bristol Bike Project - a short film about cycling, recycling and asylum', filmed during the Summer & Autumn of 2009, has been selected for the New York Bicycle Film Festival running from June 16-20th, 2010. It is currently in its 10th year and they expect around 30,000 people to attend!

Chopshop 2!

a very practical bike trailer and ridiculous chopper bike with 5ft forks!

A Beautiful Machine - Our Very Own Bike for Auction!

The bike on display as part of the "A Beautiful Machine" exhibition.

Following on from the two-week cycling event, A Beautiful Machine, up at the Howies store in Bristol recently, at which James was invited to speak about the project and what we get up to here, we are pleased to say that our group project bike build is up at the store and is being auctioned off to raise money for the project along with a bunch of other bike goodies kindly donated by Charge, Hope Technology, Brooks of England, Rapha and The Ride Magazine.

Colin proudly displaying the bike that he and others put so much work into.

The bike was given to the project about 4 months ago and was originally a lime-green peugeot racer in a pretty bad conditon. The first thing we did was to strip it down and wire brush it (with an angle grinder) back to bare metal. It then had 5 coats of clear spray lacquer before being built back up into a single-speed with reclaimed parts here at the workshop. We very much look forward to seeing it blitzing its way around the streets of Bristol soon!

To make a bid for the bike or any other of the bike bits in the auction please visit the Beautiful Machine blog where you can see what's up for grabs and find out how to make a bid. A huge thanks again to Nick Hand and John McFaul for inviting us to be a part of this event.

James speaking at the Howies store about The Bristol Bike Project

Supporting Foodcycle

The food distribution system has changed dramatically in the last several decades. As the economy moves from small local retailers to large supermarkets it is an inevitable consequence that food waste is generated and it is now estimated that food retailers waste 500,000 tonnes of food each year in the UK with a similar amount generated from the private catering sector.

FoodCycle's main goal is to fight food poverty using this surplus food and to feed people suffering from poor nutrition and malnourishment. FoodCycle is different because young volunteers from many backgrounds lead each project and their programmes use food to reconnect young adults with their local communites; social cohesion is formed amongst them and disadvantaged and underprivileged people as they directly help improve the communities that they live in.

Louis (pictured), a volunteer at Foodcycle, has also been lending a hand at the bike project for a while now and 2 weeks ago refurbished a donated bicycle to be used by Foodcycle in Bristol for transporting meals with the use of a bike trailer.

For more information about the Foodworks project and how to get involved please take a look at their website: www.foodworksuk.org

New Youth Programs

We are very happy to have started several youth programs here at the project, working for Challenge and Support, a largely preventive, early interventions pilot project supporting young people involved in recorded anti-social behaviour and/or low level offending. The focus is to positively affect young peoples' behaviour, attitudes and levels of engagement.

We are currently running comprehensive 6-week courses for five young lads, covering most aspects of bike-building and maintenance, at the end of which they will get to take away a bike that they have put together themselves. The lads have already been responding well to the workshop environment and have been enjoying getting their hands dirty taking several broken bikes apart in order to learn how to build a bike from scratch. We are keen to continue with these youth programs - if you would like further info, please get in touch!

chopshop #1

outside of our weekly wednesday and thursday workshops we had our first 'chopshop' today with our good pals spoke n'chain and managed to warp n weld our way through some redundant frames and to build some fantastic tall bikes.....expect to see them at this year's cycling carnival in september and zipping around bristol soon!

200 bikes!

We are delighted to announce that we fixed up and gave out our 200th bike this week here at the project. A huge thankyou to all those who have donated their bikes to us - please continue to spread the word about the project and encourage people to bring their unwanted bicycles down to us. We are very excited about the year ahead and are looking forward to organising some more project group rides as it gets warmer.

Thomas, Gezae, Adam & Colin work on Thomas' bicycle.

After spending an afternoon with us working to fix up the bikes that they chose from our stock of donated bikes, Thomas & Adam are ready to get cycling!

Charge Bikes supports the project

The Bristol Bike Project... from posy dixon on Vimeo.

Charge Bikes Rider Posy Dixon visited us last week to talk to us all about what we get up to here at the workshop for a forthcoming magazine article that she is writing. She also made a very short film of her day at the project - see the clip above. Thanks to Posy, Sam (her photographer) and to Charge Bikes for their support.

b&w photos by Adam, more on his Flickr

The Bristol Bike Project T-Shirt

We have just received some of these wonderful t-shirts inspired by the project, designed by Nick Hand.

Nick commented, "I was asked by my mates at the howies shop in Bristol to design a T shirt for the Better by Bike project. A few other designers and illustrators were asked as well. My preference was to help a really good, specific project and maybe funnel some cash from the Ts that way too. I took my camera down to the project and spent an hour or so just photographing bike bits - it seemed to make sense to do something which summed up the project visually. Every now and then you come across great people doing great things, and your instinct is to get involved. The Bristol Bike Project is just that".

These T-shirts are on sale now at the Howies store in bristol. A percentage of every t-shirt sold will be donated to the project to help us keep doing what we do...

'The Bristol Bike Project - a short film about cycling, recycling and asylum'

'The Bristol Bike Project - a short film about cycling, recycling and asylum', filmed during the Summer & Autumn of 2009 is now finished and we have copies available at the workshop.

We have just heard from the director, that it has been selected for the Oneworld Documentary Festival in Prague, which bills itself as the largest human rights film festival in europe, from the 3rd to the 10th march. www.oneworld.cz It is a very multinational festival and usually only accepts a small handful of films from the uk (as in two or three) and goes on to be distributed around 30 odd czech towns and goes to a whole load of schools and universities.

It has also just been accepted for this year's Unchosen Bristol Film Festival in November 2010. So we are all really pleased to hear this news and really hope that the film will help to spread some awareness about what it means to be an asylum-seeker in this country, as well as encouraging more people to bring their unwanted bicycles to us!

There will also be a link to the film from our website some time in March - we will keep you posted...

Women in the Workshop

This Monday we had our first womens' bicycle maintenance get together at the workshop. It was great!!! Lots of women came, some to fix their bikes others to make one up from scratch and some just came to join in and help. Between us we solved most problems. We just need to bring a blow dryer next week, to fix the mudguard.

People who couldn't make it rang to say they'll come next week.... it's got off to a really good start and i'm sure the night will continue beyond the four week trial and develop and grow into a regular fixture here at the Bristol Bike Project. Come along! Please either call or email Sylvie on 07961 225053 or bikebeard@googlemail.com for further info....
Vive la Velorution! La Bici e libera!