24 August, 2011

Bicycle Kitchen: Help them win $2500



Help the Bicycle Kitchen win $2500 to buy locks, lights and helmets for their Earn-A-Bike Program!



Details:

The IDEA:


The Bicycle Kitchen has an Earn-a-Bike Program where participants between 12 - 18 years earn a free bicycle from our donated frames and bikes. We do not have the resources to give them a helmet, lock or light for free. $2500 would allow us to give 30 kids these necessary items for their new ride!


The PLAN:


Earn-a-Bike is our youth outreach program where participants between 12 - 18 years “earn” a complete bicycle through instruction and participation. It meets in 8 week sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 – 6pm. The program is run by Cooks (volunteers) who teach the kids bicycle mechanics, the value of earning their bike by participating in keeping the shop organized and of working together. Each session has between 5 - 10 participants. At the end of the session Cooks take EAB-ers on a couple of rides with borrowed helmets. Lights and helmets are legally required in LA and a lock is necessary for security. We would use the funds to purchase these items and give them to EAB grads along with their complete bike.




Vote here, starting at 11:59pm

Bicycle Kitchen: Help them win $2500


Help the Bicycle Kitchen win $2500 to buy locks, lights and helmets for their Earn-A-Bike Program!


Details:
The IDEA:

The Bicycle Kitchen has an Earn-a-Bike Program where participants between 12 - 18 years earn a free bicycle from our donated frames and bikes. We do not have the resources to give them a helmet, lock or light for free. $2500 would allow us to give 30 kids these necessary items for their new ride!

The PLAN:

Earn-a-Bike is our youth outreach program where participants between 12 - 18 years “earn” a complete bicycle through instruction and participation. It meets in 8 week sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 – 6pm. The program is run by Cooks (volunteers) who teach the kids bicycle mechanics, the value of earning their bike by participating in keeping the shop organized and of working together. Each session has between 5 - 10 participants. At the end of the session Cooks take EAB-ers on a couple of rides with borrowed helmets. Lights and helmets are legally required in LA and a lock is necessary for security. We would use the funds to purchase these items and give them to EAB grads along with their complete bike.



Vote here, starting at 11:59pm

Tonight!



Get some.

Tonight!


Get some.

Kashimax Promo video!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhx_gD-aOxU]

Awesome Lil Promo Video for Kashimax. Thanks Simonthebeast!!


Kashimax Promo video!


Awesome Lil Promo Video for Kashimax. Thanks Simonthebeast!!

Wear your Helmets

Sorry for the lack of posts from me. In case you don't know I had a pretty bad crash

over the weekend. I endo'd and flipped over the handlebars, smacking my head

on the ground and opening it up. I don't really know because I can't remember. I came to,

standing up holding my head and seeing all of my shit that I was carrying all over the road. I wasn't

wearing my helmet. Dummy. Almost 90% of the time I have a helmet on. The 10% I don't is when I'm

rolling around the neighborhood or close by. Not anymore. I cannot stress how shitty the last

five days of my life has been. Forgetting things, feeling exhausted, no focus, missing work

and feeling shitty. On top of missing rides, events and races, I won't be able to ride hard for at

least a week or two. I shouldn't really be riding to work, but then life would really suck then.

All of this could have been avoided had I been wearing my helmet. I got real lucky that I only

got a concussion, it could have been a lot worse. WEAR YOUR HELMETS.

Wear your Helmets

Sorry for the lack of posts from me. In case you don't know I had a pretty bad crash
over the weekend. I endo'd and flipped over the handlebars, smacking my head
on the ground and opening it up. I don't really know because I can't remember. I came to,
standing up holding my head and seeing all of my shit that I was carrying all over the road. I wasn't
wearing my helmet. Dummy. Almost 90% of the time I have a helmet on. The 10% I don't is when I'm
rolling around the neighborhood or close by. Not anymore. I cannot stress how shitty the last
five days of my life has been. Forgetting things, feeling exhausted, no focus, missing work
and feeling shitty. On top of missing rides, events and races, I won't be able to ride hard for at
least a week or two. I shouldn't really be riding to work, but then life would really suck then.
All of this could have been avoided had I been wearing my helmet. I got real lucky that I only
got a concussion, it could have been a lot worse. WEAR YOUR HELMETS.

48x15 Interview






As the only publication focused on fixed gear culture out of Shanghai, 48x15 is bringing what we all know and love to one of the largest cities in the world. I shot them an email and wanted to find out more. Read on!



Who are you guys? Where did you come from?

Tyler and Adam, two dudes from Canada. It's crazy, we're almost carbon copies of each other – same music, love for bikes, and ambitious. I guess the only big difference is that Tyler is awesome at French and mine, for a Canadian, is shameful. We both went to school in Waterloo, Ontario and that's where we started hanging out through a mix of the music scene and mutual friends. Tyler's background and education is in architecture and design, and mine is in small business strategy and marketing, and we're both pretty happy to be using very little of it and following our dreams.


How’d you get involved with biking?

We both had friends who got us interested around the same time. A bunch of my die hard skateboard/snowboard friends were adopting this new way of getting around town and it was the idea of turning what used to be a mundane part of my day into an enjoyable passtime. I grew up in a pretty prissy neighbourhood so most of my friends had nice cars to get around, but I was always taking the bus or bum rides, so having an awesome way to get around town was an easy sell for me.


What made you start 48x15?

Shanghai is in the middle of a crazy growth spurt. I came here for the first time in February of 2011, and in the last 6 months the number of fixed riders have tripled. We want to give those who are newly interested, or maybe just bike curious something to spark their excitement and get them on the road. There are also a lot of great people doing really interesting things all over the city, and it can be a bit of a chore trying to find out about them in English. The expat community here has a few online publications and one decent printed magazine, but their focus is so broad that for every one cool event you hear about, you have sift through a hundred that aren’t.


What kind of hurdles did you face when trying to print your first issue?

Other than having no experience printing anything ever? We spent the first month just tearing apart anything printed we could get our hands on. Tyler and I are both children of the digital age, so it was

overwhelming digesting these concepts. Once we shook off initial frustration, we collected everything our friends could contribute. This magazine is free and those who contributed did so out of generosity, sobeing a dick about deadlines was hard. Speaking of deadlines, we also gave ourselves an extremely aggressive, unrealistic deadline to get everything done, so much that our printer was laughing at us.


Why not a blog over print?

There are enough blogs out there, I really don't think we could have added any value by blogging about bikes in Shanghai. Also, Tyler already has a blog called People's Bike (www.peoplesbike.com) that is published in both English and Chinese. Print is getting more and more scarce, and we hope to really stun the masses by handing out a free, high quality magazine. With print we get this now rare opportunity to engage people in the real world, hand them something tangible, with texture and character. Plus, we all love to have something to read

while we poop.


What’s good in China?

Riding the waves of total chaos on the street. There are no rules here, so if you're in the city grab a helmet, consider a front brake and go nuts. We did a 70km ride last week to a beer festival in a town called Kun Shan and it was awesome. A lot of the intercity highways here have bike lanes, which makes a lot of long haul rides safe and comfortable. It's also super flat here, which I love.


Any last words?

Time to go drop off 2000 magazines through Shanghai on our trike!


- Six Nguyen

48x15 Interview





As the only publication focused on fixed gear culture out of Shanghai, 48x15 is bringing what we all know and love to one of the largest cities in the world. I shot them an email and wanted to find out more. Read on!