How You Know When Its Time To Change Your Cog

So I may or may not have changed the cog on my fixed gear since I rode it across Iowa…poor guy. I love how that one brave little tooth just held on. Surprisingly it functioned just fine in this state.

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BNB: Tool Time

From Bikes Not Bombs

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Work On Your Own Bike at Tool Time
Thursday, December 15th
7:00 PM – 9:30 PM at the BNB Hub, 284 Amory Street

Tool Time is an opportunity for BNB members and volunteers to work on your own bikes using this space and tools. You may be able to get some advice from other members working on their projects but you should come basically prepared for what you want to do. We do not sell parts at the Hub so you’ll need to purchase parts in advance at the BNB Bike Shop or another source. Tool Time mostly happens every other week on Thursday. You need to RSVP to Jeremy Hanson at [email protected] or 617-522-0222 to reserve a space.

Also:
Tool Time is currently looking for 1-3 volunteers with vocational-level mechanics skills to help cover some of the every-other-Thursday evening workshops. The mechanic volunteers that we’re seeking don’t need to be teachers, more of references to provide occasional guidance for attendees. As with all volunteering, these volunteers will earn credits to use on used parts. Please contact Jeremy – [email protected] – if you are interested in learning more.

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Another Roll It Forward Bike Fixing Session

We have talked about Roll It Forward before (its the cities bike donation program) they are having another bike fix up session tomorrow, if you have bike fixin’ skills check it out.

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“We’re hosting another bike repair session at our warehouse this coming Saturday, April 16th, from 10AM-5.
Come get your hands dirty with us!

Please contact Thom Parsons to let him know you’re coming and for any additional info.
John Bilderbeck
Director, Community Cycling Programs
Youth Cycling Program, Roll it Forward
-Initiatives of Mayor Menino’s Boston Bikes
(617) 918-4253
[email protected]”

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Put Your Bike Fixing Skills To Good Use

got this in the email, if you got the mad wrenching skills check it out.

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Hi Boston Bikes Volunteers,

We are hosting three volunteer nights next week for skilled mechanics to help us overhaul some of our Boston Bikes Roll It Forward donated bikes. We are looking for folks with solid bike repair experience, ideally from working at a bike shop, but anyone comfortable with their tools and repair skills is certainly welcome.

If you can bring you own tools/stands, that’s great. If not, there are some communal tools at our shop.

We’ll have three sessions: 3-7 PM, Monday-Wednesday, at our shop space at 12 Channel St, in the basement. Please let us know if you can volunteer during any of those time slots by emailing John Bilderbeck at [email protected], he also can provide any additional information.

Please pass along this message to anyone you think might be interested in helping out. To recap:

Who: Experienced bike mechanics

What: Boston Bikes Roll It Forward Bike Tune-Up Nights

When: Monday – Wednesday, March 14-16, 3pm to 7pm

Where: Roll It Forward Shop Space, 12 Channel St, Boston, MA

How: Please contact John Bilderbeck directly to sign up and get any further information on the mechanic nights. Email: [email protected]. Phone: (617) 918-4253

Thanks so much for your help.

Amy McGuire
Volunteer Coordinator
650-922-6389

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Help Make Cycling Better In Boston: Suggest Smartphone Apps

I was recently contacted by some people who are developing some prototype apps for smart phones. They have the possibility of being released by the city and are going to be cycling oriented, here is the write up.

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Your smartphone is a sophisticated, connected sensor platform. The City of Boston is rolling out apps to improve quality of life through its “new urban mechanic” initiative. Through apps like Citizens Connect, we can report graffiti, get streetlamps fixed, and (maybe) even automatically detect potholes. I am working on a project with Nigel Jacob, owner of the mechanic project. As a cyclist, I’m prototyping a mobile app that will make life better for bikers in Boston. If it looks good, his department may invest the time to release it as a production-quality system. This would be a great and low-cost way for the Mayor to follow through on his promise to make the city a “cyclist’s dream.”

Here’s my question for you: What do you want? How can we help? What cycling frustrations could be solved with a mobile app? A few ideas to start the conversation:

• Need: finding bike lanes. Help with route planning.
• Frustration: cars parked in bike lanes. Submit photos of offenders? Automatically detect swerving into traffic when in a bike lane?
• Need: automatic dispatch of police/ambulance after an accident. Detect sudden deceleration followed by extended immobility, message 911 with current location.

How can we use technology and the support of the city to make this a great place for cyclists?

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Now Karl makes some good suggestions, but I feel like some of them (the auto 911 calling, and the auto detection of swerving) might be a little hard to lock down, like what if you had your phone in your bag and then threw it down then left it there, you don’t need your phone freaking out and calling 911 for you.

Here are some suggestions I have.

• A “just crashed” button. Often when people crash they suffer injuries or get damage to their bike that they don’t notice till later because of the adrenaline and the sudden nature of the whole thing. Pressing the button would walk you through a checklist of what you should do after the crash. For instance the first thing is asks you is if you need to call 911, if you press yes it records your location and calls 911 with that info. If you don’t need 911 it walks you through a post crash checklist. Having you take pictures of the scene, the licenece plate of any cars involved, making audio notes of what happened, marking your location, taking pictures of your bike etc, a place to enter the other parties info, etc. It would also send the location of the crash to the city along with a note about what happened so that the city could record what intersections/locations are dangerous and why.
• A Road issue button., a button you could push that would record your location, and let you take a picture and send it to the city, along with notes about what is wrong. Potholes, poorly places grates, double parking issues, whatever. This would send three bits of info to the city, your gps location, your picture, and your text notes. Could also have pre-configured categories (road/driver/other etc.) to help the city collect data on what problems happen most often and in what locations.
• A “thank you/like” button. This would be like the road issue button, only it would let you report things you like that the city has done recently. New bike lanes, new bike parking, etc. Besides just telling the city what you like, this could be tied into twitter/facebook/share on blogs etc. It would let you post stuff you like about the city, or things you like the city has done.
• Submit your route button. Would allow you to record via gps and submit your daily commute to the city/website. This would allow the city to see where people are riding the most, and help them plan what streets might need bike lanes. You could also use the info the help build bike route maps online.

Feel free to leave your own in the comments. Karl will be checking them out and potentially incorporating some of them.

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