Bike Wrenching Panel from 2009 Bike Summit

One of the color-coded walls of tools at the Bicycle Kitchen

In getting things going for the March 2010 StreetSummit, one of the fun things is reviewing some of the materials from the 2009 Bike Summit. Below is a great transcript from a panel featuring representatives from Los Angeles’s three bike wrenching cooperatives: the Bicycle Kitchen, the Bike Oven and BikeRoWave (Note that there’s now a fourth – the Valley Bikery – maybe they were in the room.) These local volunteer-run spaces have been tremendous resources in educating riders, fixing up bikes, growing bike culture, and just having fun. Also recommended for getting a flavor for wrenching co-ops is this short streetfilm documentary. Thanks to Herbie Huff for transcribing this! Read and enjoy.

Workshop Title: Wrenching Cooperatives Panel, 2:15 – 3:00 PM
 
What key issues were discussed at this workshop? What barriers were seen? What opportunities were presented? The founders of the Bicycle Kitchen, the Bike Oven, and the BikeRoWave told the histories of how their wrenching collectives were founded. They discussed the organizational differences between the Kitchen, which is a 501c3 non-profit, the Oven, which is under the radar, and the BikeRoWave, which is a members-owned collective. Money, funding, and rent were discussed. Money was the main barrier seen to founding a bicycle collective. The opportunity presented was the enormous support for these collectives and the demonstration that they can thrive. The representatives of the Bicycle Kitchen also invited people with ideas to propose them at the Kitchen’s board meeting, because they consider funding new ideas.
 
What are possible future actions and / or goals pertaining to the subject of this workshop? Anyone can start a bicycle collective in their neighborhood, just like these people did! Start it in your garage or your kitchen, like the Oven and Kitchen respectively. Or get a place for cheap rent, like the BikeRoWave did.
 
FULL MINUTES
 
From the summit schedule: “Do you want to start a bike co-op space in your neighborhood? Come hear reps from the Bike Kitchen, Bike Oven, and BikeRoWave share their experiences.”
 
On the panel are Revel Sims, Marisa Bell and Eric Potter from the Bicycle Kitchen; Josef Bray-Ali, Dave Matsu and Veronica Jaregui from the Bike Oven; Steve Mattson and Alex Thompson from the BikeRoWave.
 
Eric: We’ve taken three very different approaches, each out of our individual situations.
 
Ma Bell: I’ll tell the story of the Bicycle Kitchen. Jimmy Lizama, who lived in the L.A. Eco-Village, recognized a need for bike parking and light repairs. Lois, the founder of the Eco-Village, gave Jimmy an apartment to turn it into a space for bikes. He put in bike racks and a set of tools. A couple months later it went public. Six months later I move to L.A. from Boston and am tipped off to L.A. Eco-Village by someone at Skylight Books while riding my bike. At that time the spirit was all volunteer, coffee can donations, and “a lot of beer and pizza.”
Word got out. More people were coming than we could serve. Bicycle Bitchen was started. About 1.5 years into being at Eco-Village, we found ourselves with lots of cash, and got the idea to move to a bigger space. We applied to Community Partners, which is this nonprofit that helps foster the growth of other community organizations. Our relationship with Community Partners was rocky because we were so unusual to them.
 
Revel: It was difficult to come out from under the umbrella of Community Parters. Difficult, but awesome. We had all day meetings and that’s where I really saw the Kitchen at it’s best. We were deciding what to do next – whether to become a collective or a non-profit or something else. I was very critical of non-profits that rely on grants. Today, the Bicycle Kitchen is a non-profit that funds itself. We don’t sell bikes, though. This is a refrain you will hear constantly when you come to the kitchen. This was a very important point for Community Partners. Education is what you get at the Bicycle Kitchen.
 
We also had $30,000 worth of tools, and if we left Community Partners and became a collective, we couldn’t take the tools. So that was another consideration.
 
Eric: We had to modify our behaviors. We wrote bylaws. We actually had accounting. The government will be on you if you don’t toe the line in terms of accounting. We were used to the improvisational environment, but we had to change some of that.
 
Josef: Now I’ll tell the story of the Bike Oven. It started in 2005 in my garage. I had gone to the Kitchen and been really inspired by it. I bought tools with a credit card, and a box of wine and some cookies for face-to-face interaction. It started out as one day a week, basically a bunch of bike riders getting drunk on Wednesdays and working on their bikes. I was not a mechanic at this point. I barely knew anything. I kept showing up, and some nights I would sit there by myself thinking this was the stupidest idea I had ever had. But if you’re going to do it, you have to be consistent and show up. Eventually we opened on Mondays and had a women only Saturday. In 2007, we moved out of my apartment and into a storefront. We’re really lucky in that we don’t need a lease. We’re there because we’re “cool with Roy.” There’s something to be said for flying under the radar. We have no articles of incorporation, nothing like that.
 
In 2007 it stopped being this guy Josef’s garage, and it started being the NorthEast LA community. We learned a lot from the Kitchen about how to keep it fun and keep people involved. We have monthly art shows that Veronica can tell you more about.
 
Dave: In terms of our structure, we are an all consensus organization. All regular volunteers have voting rights. If one person disagrees, that’s it.
It’s okay to just start doing things. We have no lawyer, no govermental supervision. There are risks, but at the Bike Oven we haven’t had any problems so far.
 
Alex: I’ll tell the history of the BikeRoWave. On the Westside, there was a community of cyclists, but it had no physical center. The Kitchen is a 20 mile round trip away, which is too far. You can’t really go 10 miles and back to fix a broken bike. So myself, Zach, and Yolanda put our names on a lease and started paying rent. November was our first month. Our first open date was in February.
               
We charge $5 / hour to use a stand. We started paying sales tax right away, and insurance right away. We were $14,000 in the red for our first year. Now, we do $30,000 a year in business. But we will never really pay back that $14,000.
 
In terms of our organization, we have a board of directors. The board of directors will make decisions and then get overruled by volunteers.
 
Steve: I’m the GM of the BikeRoWave and on the board. I can talk a little bit about our decision to become a co-op versus a 501c3 non-profit.  Last summer the BikeRoWave voted to become a co-op. We had meetings where the Bicycle Kitchen represented a 501c3 for us and [Santa Monica org] represented a consumer co-op constituted of members. We considered both. From a legal perspective, since we are a co-op, we have to have bylaws. We have bylaws that don’t really meet the requirements of the State of CA.
 
Josef: The rent is so important. No one has any idea how much they are going to make.
 
Alex: We all operated with no books to start. Now, historical accounting has become a question and BikeRoWave just does not know how much we took in during our first months.
 
Josef: We started out as “Who cares what we are” and until it become’s a problem, let’s not deal with it. We trusted everyone who wanted to be involved. There are some drawbacks to this – at the Bike Oven there was a crazy guy who would volunteer. He ripped off a couple grand by sticking cash in his pocket every night.
 
Dave: Now, we know what’s going on but it’s still all based on trust. We certainly don’t have financial audits. But we do have some safeguards to prevent thefts like that.
 
Everyone’s there with the same mission. Maintaining a culture where people are invested and enjoying themselves is critical.
 
Audience Question: Bicycle Kitchen and BikeRoWave, how did you go about finding a space?
 
Eric: We had enough money for a deposit and the first month’s rent.
 
Ma Bell: Everyone looked for spaces as they were riding around. Ben Guzman found our current space. Then we voted.
 
Eric: It was a risk. At that point we weren’t a really legitimate organization with a lot to risk, though.
 
To this day it’s fun to ride around looking for spaces.
 
Josef: The spot we rented has a long history. For the past 15 years at least it has been home to an anarchist collective, an anarchist booktstore, and now us. We are the latest. Getting a space was a big chance. No more booze and pot. You have to be nice to the neighbors.
 
Alex: We had a relationship with the green mayor of Santa Monica. We got a “beer and a handshake” deal to get a space for $400 / month, subleasing from someone who had a month-to-month lease. This ended up being a problem because we had only been open for 7 weeks and we had to go silent for 14 days because the guy who was leasing had a problem and had to move out.
 
We are looking to move again right now. We have a real estate broker who works for us for free.
 
One dissimilarity with a business: we have 200 volunteer hours, which is equal to about 40 volunteers. That is $120,000 in free labor.
 
Steve: We are looking West of the 405, north of Washington. There is some talk of creating a Westside bike district. L.A. Brakeless is around there. We learned that the BikeRoWave is lacking in outreach. We need more $$. Right now we are hidden in an alley.
 
Audience Question: How much money do you make? And how much are your rents?
 
Bicycle Kitchen: $100,000 annually in cash. Our rent is $1600 / mo.
BikeRoWave: We make $30,000 / year. Our rent went from $900 to $1350 per month. In the move we’re looking at $2000-$2500.
Bike Oven: We make $3000 / month, and we pay about $1100 / month total for the rent, lights, internet, and phone. We use the extra money to buy tools.
 
Audience Question: Have you thought about mobile bike collectives? There’s this guy George on Sunset.
 
Eric: At the [Bike!Bike] National Bike Conference we learned about these people from Fargo, ND. They are about six months old. They take a bike trailer, a rolled up wrench set, and a stand, and they go to parks and farmer’s markets. They attract donors for their permanent facility.
 
Dave: There are people in North Carolina doing it out of a bus. The difficulty with mobile operations is building up a community base.
 
Revel: I think the concept of a bike district is very important. Sally Carson put up a sign near the Bicycle Kitchen that says “Bike District.” These spaces are centers for bike culture in LA. The space is bike culture. On Friday nights you know you can go the Kitchen and catch group rides leaving from there.
 
Audience Question: In Eugene, there were creepy bike trails. The city gave people gravel pads… (?)
 
Josef: I am terrified of public officials. They turn great ideas into a horrible mess. But I think that is a great idea, there are horrible bike paths in LA.
 
Eric: We are gaining ground towards setting up a facility at a metro stop. CRA, Metro, and City Council are all coordinating it. Because the Kitchen is a more legit organization it can be involved in things like this, so that is one benefit. There was a mandate that a non-profit have space at the metro stop. The discussions are a big, tangled, multi-agency mess. They are moving very slowly.
 
Ma Bell: The kitchen does not do advocacy. We rely on LACBC to interact with public officials and advocate.
 
Audience Question: What about a hybrid roadside-assistance-meets-messenger program?
 
Josef: That is a business plan that needs to be written. AAA for bikes.
 
[Nods all around.]
 
Ma Bell: Salva Bicis is an idea that was pitched at the Bicycle Kitchen Board Meeting. The idea is that there would be a cell phone number you could call if you had a breakdown, and the Salva Bicis would come help you.
 
Eric: It would cater to Critical Mass and Midnight Ridazz at first. We used to do stuff like that for free. Hopefully Salva Bicis will lead to a general service.
 
Audience: The truth is we are a mode of mobility. All of this is about interrupting the dominance of autos.
 
Audience: In Arcadia (?) there is a bike library. You could get a bike for a $20 deposit.
 
Dave: We’ve done that on a casual basis. Joe Linton’s grad students have used our bikes.
 
Josef: There’s a need for it.
 
Dave: The challenge is spreading the word about a program like that.
 
Josef: And space. We have 50 bikes hanging from our ceiling. If you have ever worked in a bicycle collective, you know that space is at a premium. We learned from the Kitchen to value space. If you start a project and don’t come back for a month, it will be gone, because we don’t have the space for a bunch of half-finished bikes.
 
Audience Question: How many volunteers do you each have? And how many hours are they putting in outside of public hours?
 
Bicycle Kitchen: We have 43 volunteers working a minimum of one 3 hour shift per week. We have some people that are not doing mechanical work, who are greeters or who are working the counter. Non-wrenchers. We also have someone overseeing the archives.
 
At the time of moving into our current space, we had 22-25 volunteers. Twelve people built the current facility in one day. Outside of wrenching, we have grant writers, volunteer accounting staff, and a volunteer lawyer.
 
Eric: What is the minimum you need to start a bicycle collective?
 
Josef: A set of metric wrenches, metric hex keys, cone: thin-bladed wrenches, a pump, and patch kits. Anything beyond that you need more knowledge. Vice, vernia calipers, a bike stand, and a toolboard. You know you are really big time when you get special tools for gear clusters and bottom brackets on every different type of bike. And frame tools.
 
Dave: We have 10 core volunteers. They work from 12 hours a week to 3 hours a week. They have keys to the Oven.
 
Steve: We have 35 volunteers. We are open Mon-Thurs in the evening and 1-7 pm on Saturday. We lost some lead mechanics, that was hard. We have an anarchist Thursday night, a Location Committee, an Election Committee, and a Tech Committee. Those people are all doing shifts to wrench, too.
 
Watch out for burn out in a volunteer organization.
 
Alex: There is an extremely high rate of attrition. It’s just the nature of community organizing.
 
The other “baller status” hallmark is when you get a crazy good mechanic.
 
Josef: Yes, we have one man, Harv, who writes technical articles on bike repair.
 
Ma Bell: Believe in the revolution. It’s not a business. You have to love it and believe in it. If you have an idea, come to the Kitchen Board Meeting, we’d love to sponsor it.
 
Flea Markets and REI have cheap tools
REI gives grants.
Bike stands are always on Craigslist.

Tags: bicycle, Bicycle Kitchen, Bike Oven, BikeRoWave, LABikeSummit