Bicycology & No Borders

This Friday (22nd January), we are happy to open our workshop doors to a group people from the Bicycology cycling collective who are coming in to fix up a bunch of our bikes to be used by No Borders folk in Calais.

Calais, a French coastal town, is a border between France and Britain. Last year it was “home” to over a thousand migrants waiting to travel to the UK. Now, due to increasingly repressive measures taken by the French state (and endorsed by the UK government), numbers have dropped to around 350 resident migrants at any one time. Most are forced to live in make shift tents or abandoned buildings; these are routinely destroyed by riot police.

Bikes are an essential tool in Calais and are used by No Borders activists as quick, cheap and efficient transport to enable them to monitor police activity in different migrant areas; the bikes will also form a bike library for migrants. For more info about No Borders and the situation in Calais, check out: www.calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com

Bicycology is a cyclists' collective that offers a range of activities to promote cycling and make the links with wider issues of environmental and social responsibility. A passion for cycling is used to pursue a vision of a just and sustainable world through a combination of education, entertainment and creative direct action. For more info see: www.bicycology.org.uk

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word".

Social Tandems - kids' bikes wanted!

a social tandem bike!

Our good buddies at Spoke'n'Chain are in the process of building social tandems for schools in Bristol, to be used as working vehicles to encourage bicycle use and to enable the schools to take part in this year's Cycling Carnival, coming to Bristol in September 2010. They use recycled bicycles to build these and are looking in particular for medium sized girls' bikes.

They are also beginning to build bicycle-based fairground rides and are generally interested in reusing kids bikes. We are currently not using a great deal of kids' bikes here at The Bristol Bike Project and would encourage you to get in contact with Sylvie if you have any unwanted kids' bikes and would like to donate them. Please either call or email Sylvie on 07961 225053 or bikebeard@googlemail.com

Thanks!

Let Refugees Live in Peace

We went to show our solidarity for 50 refugees & asylum-seekers that were being moved against their wishes from Bristol to Cardiff today, some of which we have worked alongside and given bikes to here at the project. Many of those being moved had very short notice, in some cases barely a week and many of them have been based here in Bristol for a substantial amount of time - some for 9 or more years. There is no explanation given as to why this has taken place.

This is a shockingly disrespectful way to treat people who are here lawfully and who are doing their best to try and live with dignity in a situation that is already fraught with uncertainty and limitation. Despite not having the chance to work and support themselves as they would prefer to do, these 50 people are learning English at college here and trying to become integrated and to feel part of the community as best they can. But how can we expect people to integrate and to feel settled if this is the way they are treated?

Despite the large crowd of protestors at the demonstration today, the coach finally managed to leave at lunchtime, albeit with a lot of police assistance. After the coach had finally managed to depart, I politely asked a couple of policemen present if they were proud of what they had just helped to facilitate and both replied that they were 'just doing their job'. Simple as that, apparently. Even when various people attempted to explain to them what was taking place they were totally uninterested in the cause and completely non-questioning of their actions - not that i expected anything else.

The Bristol Bike Project originally started because of our desire to help refugees & asylum-seekers gain more independence and to hopefully make their lives a little bit more manageable here in Bristol and we are appalled at the way this group of people has been treated today.

snow & scrap wheels

Saltford 1st Birthday Ride

The 1st Birthday ride to Saltford was a wonderful day out. Starting from the workshop, through the sunshine out via Easton, the Railway Path and a leisurely ride to The Jolly Sailor in Saltford. Lots of chips, drinks and defrosting feet by the open fire and then back towards Bristol through the perfectly timed snowfall. Finished off with a quick stop at Eastside Roots at Stapleton road station for a warming home made mulled cider.

We are One!

The Bristol Bike Project is now one year old! and what a year it's been! We have repaired and given out almost 200 bicycles to underprivileged people in Bristol in the last year, not to mention all the countless repairs and tweaks that have kept people out there on their bikes. We have evolved from two friends fixing up bikes in our back garden to a 15-strong team of volunteers with a well-equipped, beautiful workshop in the centre of stokes croft. And the project continues to evolve - early next year, watch out for a 20minute documentary about the bristol bike project and BBP-inspired t-shirts designed and sold by Howies, not to mention the various evening workshops that will be starting to happen regularly.

a H U G E thankyou to all of you that have donated bikes and parts to the project - none of this could have happened without you!! We will be having a celebratory ride on saturday 19th december along the cyclepath to saltford for some pub grub - we will be meeting at the workshop at hamilton house at 11am if anyone fancies it.....the more the merrier!

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Busy days.

Busy days the last few weeks at the Bike Project. The workshop is great to walk into on a cold day. Full of warmth and enthusiasm. A good place to be.













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Photos by Adam [+1] [+2]

The Cycle Hub supports The Bristol Bike Project

Paul from The Cycle Hub presents the new tools to Colin at the Bristol Bike Project

Working in partnership with The University of the West of England, The Cycle Hub was given the opportunity to recycle old bikes that students had abandoned at UWE campus. After these bikes were fully safety checked and tuned up they were then sold to current UWE students. The Cycle Hub raised £265 in the process, which has kindly been donated to our project. With this money we have been able to purchase a new set of tools for our ever-expanding workshop. A huge thank you to The Cycle Hub for their support. Happy days!

The Ride Journal

We are pleased to say that the bristol bike project is featured in the latest edition (issue 3) of The Ride Journal, a beautifully presented collection of personal stories related to bicycling. Not only that, but they have also kindly donated some money to the project to help us buy some more tools and equipment. A huge thank you to The Ride Journal team for their support.

Put the Fun Between Your Legs!!

image by chris carlsson
Put the fun between your legs: Become the Bike Bloc Bristol & Copenhagen Nov – Dec 09

For the UN summit Mobilisations in Copenhagen, Climate Camp is teaming up with artactivist collective The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination to design and build a new tool of civil disobedience, to be unleashed on the RECLAIM POWER day of action on 16^th December. Made from hundreds of recycled bikes, The Bike Bloc will merge device of mass transportation and pedal powered resistance machine, postcapitalist bike gang and art bike carnival.

Bike hackers, welders, climate campers, artists and engineers will be working together to design and build The Bike Bloc across two cities: Bristol ((15 – 30th Nov), at the Arnolfini Gallery as part of Platform’s C-words show. Copenhagen (4-18th Dec) at The Candy Factory, Lærkevej 11, 2400 NV. Copenhagen (closest station is Nørrebro st).

Go get involved, either designing and building the prototype in Bristol, putting together the real thing in Copenhagen or swarming with us on the day of civil disobedience on the 16th of December.

Become the Bike Bloc short Film

Maya Pedal

a bicycle coffee depulper which removes the outer shell of the coffee bean allowing farmers to then roast their own beans in the sun.

a soil plow used by hand to work soil, pushing it like a wheelbarrow

One of our growing team of volunteers here at the bristol bike project, henry, has just headed out to Guatemala for 4 months to do some voluntary work for a non-governmental organisation called Maya Pedal. They are a fantastic group that recycle used bicycles to build pedal-powered machines, 'bicimaquinas', which support and help facilitate the work of small-scale, self-sustainable projects. We wish him all the best and hope to keep up to date with his work whilst he is out there.

St Paul's Adventure Playground Workshop

We had the pleasure of spending a day at St Paul's Adventure Playground last tuesday of half term week. We were one of the many activities on offer and we did our best to repair as many bikes as we could. Thanks to all involved at the playground - we had a great time and look forward to the next one!
Some of the kids dropped by our workshop the following day to make repairs to their bikes that we were unable to do out at the playground. Following such enthusiasm from the kids we worked with, we are now in the process of trying to set up an after-school evening workshop for kids wanting to come by and learn how to mend their bikes with us.

new yard space!!

We now have more space for storing and working on bikes! This is the outdoor yard next to our workshop before we started work last week. We found all of the timber in a skip and got going with it. Big ups to henry and joe for their building skills. This now means we have an outdoor space to work in and to store more of your donated bikes.

more bikes!

August has been a great month and we have continued to distribute a lot of bicycles. Thanks again to all of those that have donated their unwanted bicycles to us. We have an ever-growing team of co-volunteers on board which means we are able to work through more of your unwanted bikes. One of them is Rob who is cycling from Cirencester to South Africa and in the process raising money for Re-Cycle starting in October of this year - please have a look at his website www.tri4africa.co.uk to support his amazing journey!!

Will & John

Will came back to see us last week after coming out of detox as part of a Salvation Army program he is on. We had worked with him a month ago and he had gone away very happy with a bike. He told us that that same weekend that he had received his bike, he had cycled 38miles as part of Bristol's Biggest Bike Ride and had not touched any alcohol all weekend because he was so energised from riding his bike.

John (pictured left), working alongside one of our volunteers Will, is another gentleman that we have recently worked with by way of the Salvation Army. He is keen to volunteer with us on a regular basis in order to learn more skills and to keep active.

Slowcoast

http://www.slowcoast.co.uk/

Nick Hand, from Bristol, is riding around the entire coastline of Britain, making soundslide films along the way which document artisans that live and work along it. Take a look.

On his blog, there is a great quote:

“When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man’s convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.”

Elizabeth West, ‘Hovel in the Hills’

The Bristol Bike Project Film!

Two months ago, alistair oldham, head of documentary-making at the University of the West of England contacted us about the possibility of making a short documentary about the bristol bike project.

They have been filming the project and the people we work with for the last six weeks and are currently editing the film which should be ready by the end of september. There will be various screenings of the film in and around bristol and we will have a link from our website when it is live. Watch this space!

one hundred bicycles!

well, we've made it! As of this week, we have now restored and distributed 100 bicycles!
Our team of volunteers keeps growing and we continue to receive a steady stream of unwanted bikes - a HUGE thankyou to all those that have supported us in so many ways - by giving us your unwanted bikes, volunteering your time to help us out or just dropping us a positive email telling us how much you like the project! THANK YOU! onwards and upwards.........woo hoo!

New Website

Please take a look at our new website here:

www.thebristolbikeproject.org

We will continue to update this blog with latest news about the project.