Hey ya’ll,
It is a tough day out there. I don’t have a lot of time as my bike ride to the hardware store this morning took much longer than I expected. It isn’t easy to ride though that much snow, but I made it! So for those naysayers, I DID ride my bike today in Detroit. For those of you that feel as if you could never do that, I must admit that I did walk my bike a good amount as well this morning!
Anyway, not much time so I’m gonna shut up about today and tell you about last weekend!
So above you can see some proof that we made it to NYC! Heather made it as well, but she was behind the camera…phone. So she was there, trust me! After driving in a miserable car for about 10 hours we arrive in NYC, checked into our hostel and went down to the summit to meet some other folks.
Heather and I weren’t the best at meeting other adults and were mostly tired from driving all day, but on Friday night one of my favorite moments happened:
As we walked into the meeting space as a group we were immediately spotted and approached by a youth from West Town Bikes. She looked at Trevon and Sarai, guessed their ages and when she had her suspicions confirmed she invited our youth over to a side of the room where all the youth were mingling. It took about 5 seconds for Sarai and Trevon to be introduced to the national community of youth bike mechanics and advocates. It was truly beautiful and the long drive we had all day was immediately worth it.
(and totally click that link to West Town Bikes up above, their youth are super with it and happening. They brought about 10 youth to the summit. It was great.)
The next morning we headed down to the summit where we heard two main speakers: Devlynn Chen and Enrique Penalosa. Devlynn is a Local Spokes Youth Ambassador from NYC and Enrique is the former mayor of Bogota Columbia and now travels the world helping clueless politicians make their cities more bike friendly.
Both speakers in their own way reminded me why bikes are so cool and revolutionary. Devlynn spoke about how a bicycle changed her entire life and how it was exactly what she needed to help her family out during the hurricane Sandy fallout on the lower east side of Manhattan. Enrique spoke passionately about how bicycles truly are revolutionary machines. He had a bunch of great sound bikes which a few folks have turned into easy to digest photos like this one:
In cities, everyone human needs to be acknowledged right? Cities are often characterized as unloving machines overflowing with people, buildings, cars and concrete. But without people, a city isn’t anything. We should know that here in Detroit. So we need to think about people.
Enrique also spoke about how cities need density to be effective. Public transportation cannot work without urban density, he claimed. I won’t say whether I agree or disagree with Mayor Bing’s “right sizing” idea, but as we talk about M-1 rail, buses and other transportation options, maybe we need to be talking about our density issues? And maybe we need to talk about why the city is leading the transportation talk when the suburbs are sprawling and diluting our density by the second, yet they aren’t coming to the table to talk about transportation options.
I’ll finish my preaching here ya’ll because I got good vibes and pride in our youth to get to.
So after the inspiring speeches we took to the streets to march to the building where the workshops would be. Here is a photo of Trevon taking it to the streets:
I wish I had the time to tell you about all the workshops the four of us attended, but that could be a novel in itself. Hopefully as Back Alley Bikes grows and progresses, the lessons we learned will be evident in the positive work we will get accomplished. Because that is what this summit is about. It is about not being content about putting a few kids on bikes. There were workshops on giving youth the tools to lead organizations, start riding clubs, ride tours across the country and how to get a job working with bikes.
Yeah, you read that correct. A group of teenagers presented on their experience doing a bike tour across many many state lines.
So what does this mean for Back Alley Bikes? This was our first time taking youth to the conference and it was one of our first steps to get feedback from our youth about what they want out of our bike shop, what they can do to encourage others and how they can participate in building a bike culture.
I’ve got much respect for groups like Tour De Troit, Fender Bender, Bikes & Murder, East Side Riders and all the other bike groups making Detroit what it is. But here at Back Alley Bikes we are envisioning packs of kids riding around in the city, teenagers showing up a city council meetings, knocking on doors to encourage a more bike friendly place. We are envisioning youth going somewhere!
You may recognize Sarai and Trevon as last summer’s Mechanic-in-Training students. On the way home they spoke about ways Back Alley Bikes could improve and one of the things they suggested is having the new class of Mechanic-in-Training students meet the youth from last year. They both agreed to come and talk to our new recruits this June.
Often, the narrative is that when enough youth get together you need to watch them to make sure they don’t try to pull something crazy. Here at Back Alley Bikes we are counting on it. This is the first step, as we get more and more bright and intelligent youth together we hope to get them together to come up with their own solutions.
Here’s to the future ya’ll!!!!