Bicycle repair and recycling for charitable organization?
October 25, 2018 9:54 AM Subscribe
How can I learn bicycle salvage and repair, and manage other volunteers doing the same thing? A group I belong to has joined forces with another organization that takes donated bicyles and refurbishes them to give away to kids during the holiday season.
This group collects donated bicycles, some of which are in really bad shape, and refurbishes them, usually in November and December. The bicycles are given away to kids who need them in a holiday gift basket program.
How can I, a reasonably handy person without experience, learn the best ways to evaluate and repair these bikes? How can I help the other volunteers in our group manage this process.
We have some goodwill with our local bike store mechanics, but other than a few hours of their donated service at our first meeting I don't want to rely on them too heavily for fear of using up that goodwill.
I think my inspiration here are places like Free Cycles Missoula or the Bozeman Bike Kitchen. (Wow, Montanna has some surprisingly good community bicycle groups...) Although I am willing to learn about other ways of doing this as well.
Our group is not centered around bicycles-- we are a Repair Cafe cooperative, so we have good technical skills and can learn. The group we are partnering with is an old-school fraternal organization, which only has four or five active members, most of whom are in their sixties or older.
I would love to hear things like how to learn bicycle repair, how to evaluate frames for salvage/disposal, what to look for, possibly how to clean and paint rusted or damaged frames, how to manage the volunteer part, how to promote it the community and possibly ask for donations of inner tubes, helmets or tires, etc. Anything you can to do help or advice to offer would be greatly appreciated.
This group collects donated bicycles, some of which are in really bad shape, and refurbishes them, usually in November and December. The bicycles are given away to kids who need them in a holiday gift basket program.
How can I, a reasonably handy person without experience, learn the best ways to evaluate and repair these bikes? How can I help the other volunteers in our group manage this process.
We have some goodwill with our local bike store mechanics, but other than a few hours of their donated service at our first meeting I don't want to rely on them too heavily for fear of using up that goodwill.
I think my inspiration here are places like Free Cycles Missoula or the Bozeman Bike Kitchen. (Wow, Montanna has some surprisingly good community bicycle groups...) Although I am willing to learn about other ways of doing this as well.
Our group is not centered around bicycles-- we are a Repair Cafe cooperative, so we have good technical skills and can learn. The group we are partnering with is an old-school fraternal organization, which only has four or five active members, most of whom are in their sixties or older.
I would love to hear things like how to learn bicycle repair, how to evaluate frames for salvage/disposal, what to look for, possibly how to clean and paint rusted or damaged frames, how to manage the volunteer part, how to promote it the community and possibly ask for donations of inner tubes, helmets or tires, etc. Anything you can to do help or advice to offer would be greatly appreciated.
For this work, you need an experienced bike mechanic to guide things.
If you're reasonably handy, you might be able to wrench a bit, but you need an experienced eye to guide some overhaul, triage what can and cannot be overhauled, assess safety, and show the proper and efficient way to do some of this work.
If I were you, I'd start by calling up bike shops and see if they'd partner with you by loaning out a mechanic for a day or two. Shop could get some good publicity, worker gets hours during a slow season, and you get an experienced mechanic to make sure that the bikes that go out are safe and worth being used.
posted by entropone at 10:30 AM on October 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you're reasonably handy, you might be able to wrench a bit, but you need an experienced eye to guide some overhaul, triage what can and cannot be overhauled, assess safety, and show the proper and efficient way to do some of this work.
If I were you, I'd start by calling up bike shops and see if they'd partner with you by loaning out a mechanic for a day or two. Shop could get some good publicity, worker gets hours during a slow season, and you get an experienced mechanic to make sure that the bikes that go out are safe and worth being used.
posted by entropone at 10:30 AM on October 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
We have some goodwill with our local bike store mechanics, but other than a few hours of their donated service at our first meeting I don't want to rely on them too heavily for fear of using up that goodwill.
Respectfully, you'll lose more goodwill if you accept donated bikes that could have been sent elsewhere and then either ruin them or send them out to kids in unsafe condition.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:51 AM on October 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Respectfully, you'll lose more goodwill if you accept donated bikes that could have been sent elsewhere and then either ruin them or send them out to kids in unsafe condition.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:51 AM on October 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Lots of organizations do this. You could search the bike collectives think tank archives to see if anyone has asked this (or any other questions you might have) before.
If you're near either of those community bike groups, consider volunteering for them doing triage and repair.
If you're not near them, don't worry. That was just a confidence-builder. You have enough experience to start triaging and stripping bikes down now. Ask someone who knows at least slightly more than you to give you their best guidelines, and then trust your best instincts. You will grow better at this with practice. Triaging is a great beginner task. Repairs you'd want to get checked over by someone with more experience. There are checklists all over the internet for bike repair tune-ups, overhauls, etc.
posted by aniola at 11:09 AM on October 25, 2018
If you're near either of those community bike groups, consider volunteering for them doing triage and repair.
If you're not near them, don't worry. That was just a confidence-builder. You have enough experience to start triaging and stripping bikes down now. Ask someone who knows at least slightly more than you to give you their best guidelines, and then trust your best instincts. You will grow better at this with practice. Triaging is a great beginner task. Repairs you'd want to get checked over by someone with more experience. There are checklists all over the internet for bike repair tune-ups, overhauls, etc.
posted by aniola at 11:09 AM on October 25, 2018
To elaborate on my earlier answer, which I know isn't really an answer to the question you asked:
As a decent mechanic, I shudder to think of this task being done by somebody without a fair bit of bike mechanic experience. I'm trying to be a buzzkill, here - just trying to offer a healthy dose of knowing what you're in for, and reasonable expectations.
The reason why I think this is because there is sooooo much variety in what a "donated bike" can be: whether it's a gem that just needs a little bit of polishing, whether it can be repaired with just some time and basic materials, or whether it's barely more than garbage. You say some of them are in really bad shape - there are lots and lots and lots of bikes out there that essentially do not have replaceable parts.
The reason why this whole thing is misleadingly hard is that you expect donated clunkers to be kind of easy to spruce up because of low expectations - but, quite frankly, old bikes require a lot more expertise than new ones. Often, old cheap bikes (the kind that get donated places) weren't designed to last; they were equipped with cheap parts that aren't designed to be serviceable and don't have standard parts (e.g., the box of replacement brake pads you bought won't fit them). And because of age, wear, and the original parts themselves, they require a more experienced hand and subtle mechanic ability to diagnose the problem and get them working - even if it's just something as simple as a handbrake that, frankly, was never designed to be particularly good anyway. Frankly, some of these were barely better than garbage when they were manufactured; imagine how they are a few years after being left to rot in a garage or under the porch.
I can take a look at a donated bike and let you know where it lies, on the spectrum of "serviceable with a good cleaning and an hour's worth of work" to "will cost an ungodly amount of time and parts to try to repair and still will not work properly once you're done wasting time and parts." But there's no easy resource to point to, no checklist, that will help you learn that in a month or so. It just comes from having seen and worked on thousands of bikes.
posted by entropone at 11:10 AM on October 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
As a decent mechanic, I shudder to think of this task being done by somebody without a fair bit of bike mechanic experience. I'm trying to be a buzzkill, here - just trying to offer a healthy dose of knowing what you're in for, and reasonable expectations.
The reason why I think this is because there is sooooo much variety in what a "donated bike" can be: whether it's a gem that just needs a little bit of polishing, whether it can be repaired with just some time and basic materials, or whether it's barely more than garbage. You say some of them are in really bad shape - there are lots and lots and lots of bikes out there that essentially do not have replaceable parts.
The reason why this whole thing is misleadingly hard is that you expect donated clunkers to be kind of easy to spruce up because of low expectations - but, quite frankly, old bikes require a lot more expertise than new ones. Often, old cheap bikes (the kind that get donated places) weren't designed to last; they were equipped with cheap parts that aren't designed to be serviceable and don't have standard parts (e.g., the box of replacement brake pads you bought won't fit them). And because of age, wear, and the original parts themselves, they require a more experienced hand and subtle mechanic ability to diagnose the problem and get them working - even if it's just something as simple as a handbrake that, frankly, was never designed to be particularly good anyway. Frankly, some of these were barely better than garbage when they were manufactured; imagine how they are a few years after being left to rot in a garage or under the porch.
I can take a look at a donated bike and let you know where it lies, on the spectrum of "serviceable with a good cleaning and an hour's worth of work" to "will cost an ungodly amount of time and parts to try to repair and still will not work properly once you're done wasting time and parts." But there's no easy resource to point to, no checklist, that will help you learn that in a month or so. It just comes from having seen and worked on thousands of bikes.
posted by entropone at 11:10 AM on October 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
How can I help the other volunteers in our group manage this process.
Invite the volunteers to show up on a staggered schedule. Group of volunteers A arrive. Teach set of volunteers A a thing. Group of volunteers B arrive. Have volunteers A teach volunteers B. Group of volunteers C arrive. Have group A work on thing learned. Have volunteers B teach volunteers C.
Wander around answering questions.
posted by aniola at 11:11 AM on October 25, 2018
Invite the volunteers to show up on a staggered schedule. Group of volunteers A arrive. Teach set of volunteers A a thing. Group of volunteers B arrive. Have volunteers A teach volunteers B. Group of volunteers C arrive. Have group A work on thing learned. Have volunteers B teach volunteers C.
Wander around answering questions.
posted by aniola at 11:11 AM on October 25, 2018
My local bike exchange has a ton of information online on how they run their repair days, including how they set up their stations, the workflow of the bikes, volunteer responsibilities, and a bike repair checklist. Look especially at their roles for experienced volunteers - you won't need every one of these (like a bike salesperson) but you will need some of them. You will also need to think about how you are going to source repair stands, tools, and replacement parts.
posted by muddgirl at 11:13 AM on October 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by muddgirl at 11:13 AM on October 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
You only will really need replacement consumables, like brake pads, patch kits, lube, that sort of thing. You can use the triaged bikes for parts.
posted by aniola at 11:19 AM on October 25, 2018
posted by aniola at 11:19 AM on October 25, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by knownassociate at 9:57 AM on October 25, 2018