I’m getting to be that age when I think of something that happened in the past and I have trouble placing exactly what year it happened in. I’ve got a pretty good picture of 2013 at Back Alley Bikes though.
This post is going to be a longer one as I recap all that we’ve done this year (and how you can help us continue our work into 2014!). So here is the story of how we got 472 youth on bicycles this year (and other assorted tales).
First Bike the Blizzard
The beginning of 2013 brought a new tradition – Bike the Blizzard (at the time we just called it a “bike-a-thon” – sometimes it takes time to come up with a name). 12 of us rode a total of 610 miles at different times over 24 hours to raise money for Back Alley Bikes. As most of our events are, it was bare bones. We just rode, had some snacks and a shop to stay warm in.
We had new friends like Diane Weiss bring snacks to share with everyone and helped out starting the ride at midnight! It was a really successful time all around. Not only did we raise some money, but we really had a good time as well.
First Youth Bike Summit
In the beginning of 2013 we took two of our Mechanic in Training students to NYC for the Youth Bike Summit. This is a Summit that walks the walk. Not only do they have workshops geared towards youth, but they also have youth lead workshops.
Also, every year has a youth keynote speaker. We’ve said it before – youth aren’t the future, they are the present as well.
Sure, some will become leaders in the future, but some of them are leaders right now and it makes perfect sense to listen to what they have to say. This is a new tradition for us as well. We hope to be able to take youth every year that the summit happens to increase our youth’s exposure to bicycle culture and a free exchange of ideas with other youth doing the same work as they are.
Back Alley Bikes has always been good at providing a space for youth to be exposed to bikes. The next step is to provide a space that nourishes and amplifies youth voices to the rest of the community. This is one step along the way.
Art Show / Library Program
Oh did I mention that in January there was an art show featuring art by the youth from our Main Library program?
While I’m on the subject I should mention the great support of the Teen HYPE center at the Detroit Main Library. For the past two years we’ve been working with the Teen HYPE center to bring bike mechanics and culture into the library. The staff has been ever so supportive in bringing us in to start conversations about bicycling with youth. Some days we are met with youth that just want to do their homework and not bother with these bike things. Other days we are greeted by our hardcore group of youth dedicated to bicycling. It really is an honor to be another resource at an institution like the Detroit Main Library.
Retail Shop Expansion
By the end of Winter we were expanding our retail shop. Giving folks space to actually walk in the door and look at bicycles. The floor space available for bicycles increase significantly and our mechanics have been working hard to keep the floor full since then.
If you are a regular customer of our retail shop, The Hub of Detroit, you are most likely very used to this new layout, but it hasn’t even looked this way for a whole year yet. I think it is really nice. Also, we expanded to have a dedicated repair space that has allowed our mechanics to kick out more repairs quicker. Since this time they have been getting repairs back to people in about a day. Pretty good turn around time.
Partnering Programs / SW Rides
Our friends at SouthWest Rides: Bikes and Boards had a big year as well. Luckily we were able to help them out by giving them a few supplies this year to continue their great Youth Earn-a-Bike program in SouthWest Detroit.
In 2013 we gave 40 bicycles to partner organizations that work with youth as well as countless parts and other forms of support.
Youth Ride Club
When Spring came, we were ready and launched our Youth Ride Club. You see, we’ve always been better teaching folks how to work on bikes than to ride them. Time to change that because there is no use fixing them if you can’t ride them too! To truly be a bike mechanic you must also love bicycles.
I’ve met some folks in my time that are not capable of riding a conventional bicycle. They either had lost use of their legs or were blind. But they still worked on bicycles because they loved the bicycle.
So what better way to get youth loving bicycles than taking them on rides? In 2012 we started having weekly rides throughout the summer. In 2013 we started in May and went through August. 35 youth total took part in the rides.
Some only went on one ride while others attended about half of all the rides we went on. Collectively, the youth all together rode about 600 miles.
Unfortunately, I don’t have solid numbers from 2012, but based on our estimates ridership went up by about 75% and approximately 200 more miles were rode this year. Not too bad!
The future? You know how Slow Roll gets thousands of folks in the streets riding every week? Well, that is pretty great, but what if our neighborhoods saw the return of youth in the streets? Playing, being merry and enjoying the outdoors? We are working on it. The youth ride club will be back in 2014.
BAB Workshop Upgrade
In the summer we got the hookup with our friends at Shinola. They made a donation to us, but said that we had to spend it on tool upgrades. So we redid our workshop! It isn’t fair that The Hub of Detroit is always getting a make over, it was time for Back Alley Bikes to get in the game.
Our workbenches were built in April of 2011 which was our last upgrade. It was definitely time. With that cash money we got a few new workstands, new truing stands and a few other tools. Much like the customers of The Hub, folks that use the Back Alley Bikes space can’t remember a time when it wasn’t set up the way it currently is and it has only been this way for a few months!
Youth Earn-a-Bike Report
While I’m talking about that workshop, lets talk about the things that happen there! In 2013 we saw 228 youth get their hands dirty learning bike mechanics in our shop. This number doesn’t reflect the youth that sought out our services. Our workshop is only so big and we estimate that there is easily another 100 youth that we unfortunately had to turn away because our shop was full 83% of the year. In other words there were only 10 Youth Earn-a-Bike sessions the whole year that were not at (or beyond) capacity.
Some of the youth that made it into the shop worked on bikes they already owned and 154 earned bicycles in our Youth Earn-a-Bike program.
This year we saw more youth working on bicycles, but not more bikes being earned. Why would I be telling you this? It doesn’t seem like good news does it? We increased what each youth is required to earn. In other words, not only are we getting bikes out onto the street with youth, but they are learning more about mechanics.
In the past youth would just fix up the bicycles and go. Now we require youth to complete a certain number of tasks on the bicycle before they “earn” the bike. So even if their bicycle is in good shape, they are taking it apart and fixing it. If the bike is in super good shape, we have extra parts around our shop for them to learn on.
If anything, I expected the number of bicycles going out to decrease, but the number is pretty close to last year’s. So we can get the same number of bikes out AND teach more. That is really good news.
2013 was also our biggest year since in the summer we offered Youth Earn-a-Bike five days a week. Throughout 2013 we offer 273 hours of shop time for youth, more than ever before.
JMC Electrical Donation
While thinking about shop improvements, we got another one during the summer through our friends JMC Electrical who reconstructed the lighting in our warehouse. This was something that was WAY over due. Not only did JMC donate materials, but they donated the labor of a crew of three folks for three full days to get the job done.
Our warehouse has been a dark dungeon for years and now we finally have adequate lighting back there. It is hard to express how important this work was for us. Thanks again JMC!
Adult Mechanic Class
Not only do we provide mechanic education to youth, we also have a weekly Adult Mechanic Class. This class was attended by 113 adults in 2013. In December we even offered a special winter riding discussion class that went quite well.
Mechanics-in-Training / Staff
This summer we had four really great Mechanic-in-Training students. Three out of four of them had been in our shop before. The last student had visited the shop on a field trip with his gym class and decided he liked the vibes. Here is a recap of when they started working with us.
It was a real pleasure having Ian, Duane, Shamar and Omari work with us. Also, having Detroit City Connect help fund the program this year was a great help! We can’t wait to take them to NYC for the Youth Bike Summit in February of 2014.
While I’m talking about the summer staff at Back Alley Bikes I definitely have to make a shout out to Olivia, Sicily and George who made this our best summer ever. If you need proof, check out this staff photo below that we took at the end of the summer.
Youth Bike Give-a-Ways
This year we were able to get 278 bikes out to youth under the age of 10 years old. You see, when youth are too young to participate in Youth Earn-a-Bike, we still want them to ride. So here is what we do:
We get smaller bikes donated and we have volunteers and staff rebuild those bikes up. Then we get in contact with partnering organizations such as Dog Aide Detroit, Gompers School, Vista Nuevas Head Start, Downriver Delta Community and many other groups. They tell us how many youth they can help out and we give them those bikes.
Pretty easy really. They know families in need and we know bikes. Put those two things together and we’ve got solutions happening.
Volunteers / Donors
This year we saw our volunteers giving 2,722 hours of their time (and that was what we could track). Many volunteers go above and beyond in this regard. They will go to pick up donations for us, teach our youth, go on scrap runs to help us recycle, help us sort donations, clean the shop, take people on tours and assist us with special events among other things. So most likely that number is larger, just like the hearts of our volunteers.
It isn’t just our volunteers that have big hearts though. But our donors that shop at The Hub, write us checks, go on our Progressive Dinner rides (and make food for said rides), donate their artistic talents to our benefits and many other examples. I can’t even try to list them all. But as the saying goes, it takes a village to have a youth bicycle project.
I should also mention all the bike shops that hold donations for us. How great are they?
Donors and volunteers came together this year when we had our first Noel Night activity. We had an art auction. All the volunteers and artists that made that night happen are amazing. We look forward to this being an annual event!
Also worth mentioning is the sweet fund raiser that the Woodbridge Pub and Detroit Bikes threw for us without us even asking! Thanks a ton!
Alright, time to move on or I’ll start listing the mile long list of all of our friends.
Youth Volunteer Time
This year, due to all the support we’ve gotten we made an important expansion. We now have a youth volunteer time. Previously, youth finished building a bike at our shop and then were on their way. Maybe they would come back and go on rides with us. Now we have a time for them to hang out and learn more about bicycles in a youth safe space.
As mentioned much earlier in this entry, we need to provide a space for youth to develop, be inspired and amplify their own voices. The youth volunteer time is a venue for youth to stay involved with our shop on a long term basis and develop thoughts and feelings on Detroit’s growing bike culture.
United Health Pro Cyclists
At the end of the summer we got a special treat from United Healthcare who brought their pro racing team to meet our youth. This was a super special treat when a lot of the kids that come to our shop have never been introduced to bike racing before.
A lot of the youth at our shop just want a BMX that they can tear up around their neighborhood, which is great. But every once in a while we get that youth that says – “I wanna go fast! Give me one with skinny tires!” However, the world of bicycle racing is still completely alien to them. On this visit, our youth got to meet and ask questions of folks that ride for a living.
United Healthcare also gave us a bunch of swag (like 100 bike locks) to give out to our kids. It was a really great event!
In Remembrance
This Fall was a tough time for us all in the cycling community. First, a Hub customer, Slow Roll corker and general good guy – Hal Williams was murdered by a motorist. (Note I say murdered because the driver did not stop. A hit and run never is and never will be “an accident”).
Then closely after, an 8 year old named DJ was hit, dragged and murdered by someone driving a car.
Then again, a man whom we never learned the name of, was struck by an automobile traveling over 90 miles per hour on Michigan Ave.
All three of these cyclists have ghost bikes set up for them now. I really don’t want to set up anymore of these. It is necessary but not fun. It only shows that we have much more work to do in order to reclaim our streets.
To make matters worse, one of our own youth was struck crossing Woodward on MLK, just two blocks from our shop. He was dragged 200 feet underneath the car and had his knee ripped off. Currently that youth is still recovering. He will walk again, but the last time I spoke with him he wants to buy a car because he is afraid to ride. This is coming from a kid that rode everywhere. When he was hit, he was on his way home from school.
The driver was not charged. I guess they don’t have laws for crushing the dreams of children, or their knees either.
I can’t help but think of this as attempted murder. After speaking with the youth that got dragged, he told me the only reason the driver stopped is because bystanders ran into the street and convinced him to stop. That and the bicycle he was riding was lodged underneath the car. If that bicycle was not there, one of the kids from my shop would be dead. After putting up multiple ghost bikes this fall, I couldn’t stand to put up another. It was much too close.
We have work to do!
Kid video
I don’t want this entry to end on a low note, so here is something really nice. A video some of our youth made with one of our volunteers Whitney.
How to use a U-Lock from Hub Detroit on Vimeo.
Looking Forward
I’m sure I’ve forgotten so much. There are so many memories in this shop that it is easy to forget what a magical place this is. It is truly an honor to be able to do this work and have the support of so many great folks. We can do this together and each year things continue to get better.
Our plan is to not expand our programming in 2014, but instead to increase the quality of what we do. Specifically we are looking to provide more opportunities for our youth to stay involved long term (especially through our youth volunteer time). If we are serious about youth empowerment, we need to have youth active at all levels of our organization.
But to do more work, we do need more resources. Please consider donating in the form of a bicycle, money or your time. We have our Bike the Blizzard event coming up that you can donate to, we have more calendars you can order from this website and our retail shop is open for business year round! Please consider a donation so we can continue the year round work we do with youth.
Thanks for another great year everyone,
jason x
