Hey ya’ll,
Welcome to a very special The Hub of Detroit and Back Alley Bikes joint website post.
First, The Hub of Detroit news:
THE HUB OF DETROIT IS CLOSED TODAY, THE 8TH OF FEBRUARY.
Don’t worry, they’ll get back to work tomorrow. I guess they are all busy riding bikes today?
Second, because many people have a “snow day” today and are most likely trolling around the internet waiting for their laundry to finish, let me give you something to look at. Back Alley Bikes presents to you:
Photos of our youth program
You might recognize Jeremy. Jeremy finished building this bike back in December. This was bike #501 that we got out to youth in 2012. So Jeremy, thanks for breaking the 500 mark with us.
You may also notice that brand new helmet on his head. You see, the bike wasn’t the only thing Jeremy got that day. He also got a lock and helmet due to some sweet donations we got. Along with that helmet, Jeremy got a personal helmet fitting:
I guess it would be good to show you a shot of Jeremy working on the bike too huh? In the picture above, besides Heather, you can also see one of our volunteers, Mike, giving a hand. But here is another picture of Mike doing exactly that – giving a hand. This is a pretty good photo to demonstrate how things work at Youth Earn-a-Bike. It is a great system where we take tools and put them into the hands on the youth. Then the adults get the great task of instructing the best we can without touching the tools.
We always say that ideally, the adults shouldn’t even have to wash their hands at the end of the day because we never touched tools or grease. Of course, things aren’t always perfect, but as youth become better mechanics, our adult volunteers can become better teachers. Everyone works together and learns together. So even though it is a youth program, there is some inter-generational work going on.
Speaking of adult volunteers, let me introduce you to Gary. Seen to the left is a picture of Gary earning a bike for himself.
No, I’m only joking, but Gary is one of our volunteers during Youth Earn-a-Bike. You’ll notice in this photo that he definitely is working on this bike. Due to the low turnout in the middle of the winter, our volunteers have to wait sometimes for youth to show up. So while they wait they build up bikes for youth too young for Earn-a-Bike like elves working in Santa’s workshop. I hope that our workshop is a little bit warmer and I think our volunteers do a good job of filling it with cheer.
But that was SOOOoooooo 2012! Lets get in with the new shall we? Alright, alright! Check this out:
You may have read a previous post by me talking about this art show. Well if you are unfortunate as I was to miss the opening, I have good news. The art is still up through the next month! Just follow that link I put in the text for more information about the show and the Detroit Creative Corridor Center.
But I also want to take a minute to talk about why I like the piece of work we submitted…
First, the bike was painted by kids in our Bike Tech program we run in collaboration with the HYPE Teen Center at the Detroit Public Library Main Branch. So you know, getting work done by youth up in a gallery is just really cool to me. I hope I’m not the only one excited by this.
Second, I think this piece really found a different way to show off bicycles and is really one of the ways we try to get folks to look at bikes here at Back Alley Bikes.
The bicycle is a whole machine you can use to get you places, to have fun with and to just escape on. But by being able to take it apart and learning to work on a bike you see so much more. Knowing how the parts work together as systems and how those systems work together to complete the bicycle gives a whole new perspective on this simple machine.
In the stair well to Back Alley Bikes we have a bunch of drawings on the wall from our Youth Earn-a-Bike participants. It is a requirement for all of our Youth Earn-a-Bike participants to draw a bike before they start working on one. We then ask them to name and label as many parts as they can. This gets their mind thinking through all the different parts of the bike to look through the one machine and see all the parts and systems working together. Because once you can see those systems you can better work on the bike. (Can I get a metaphor for fixing other things in society and life right here? Or is that what we’ve been talking about all along?)
And finally, along with the bike that was taken apart and painted by our youth, it was super cool and an honor to be able to use some great photos taken by Nora Mandray of the detroitjetaime.com project. Not familiar with Detroit Jetaime? Well go check it out!
Alright are you still with me? Okay, good because I got a few more photos to show you. I guess let me introduce you to another volunteer before I get back to the kids. On the left you can see a picture of Glenn and I. I like this photo because it shows how much Glenn trusts me.
This photo also shows how much our tools get beat up being used constantly in a learning environment. So sometimes, you just have to use a hammer to bend part of the workstand back into place.
Glenn, in particular is one of our volunteers who finds ways to make tools that we think are totally dead work again. There is a pump in our shop that we thought was dead long ago. When it got donated to us, the donor probably thought it was on its last leg as well. But then here comes Glenn rigging it up and that thing is still kicking! I would name that pump after Glenn if it didn’t sound so condescending. But yeah, Glenn is pretty cool.
The real reason Glenn comes around though is to teach youth something new. Here he is doing a good job of teaching while his student, Sanchez, gets distracted by the camera I’m holding. Sanchez does a good job of pretending he isn’t posing doesn’t he?
I luckily remembered my camera on the day Sanchez finished his bike on a cold February Saturday.
Unfortunately Sanchez can’t claim to be bike #1 in 2013. I think this was bike #3 for Youth Earn-a-Bike for the year, but notice the yellow frame? Following in Jeremy’s foot steps. Maybe yellow is the color of winter 2012/2013? Sanchez is the model so he would be able to tell you better then me. Here is Sanchez with the finished bike.
Alright, if you’ve made it this far you are probably ready to go find another thing to stare at for a while. But before you do that, let me give you a teaser for some news coming this month:
1) Remember those Mechanic-in-Training kids from last summer? Well, next week, two of them will be embarking on a really cool project that you will want to check out.
2) You know how The Hub of Detroit retail shop is always changing? Well…well I guess I just gave it away a little. The shop has made some more improvements that they are already in love with. Check back in so you can fall in love too.
Alright, I’ll be back next week to blab at ya! Enjoy the snow day (if you got one)