In response to suggestions, we have created a local event / ride calendar. On the calendar, we intend to list regular events as well as specially-organized rides. If you would like to add a ride to the calendar, please contact us and we will be happy to help you advertise. Additionally, if you would like us to help you stage a ride, we will be happy to coordinate with you.
By popular demand, we’re changing the hours again. We’re going to try Sundays from Noon to 3pm. Bring lunch, beverages, bike projects…. Even if you don’t have bike work to do, this is the Lounge! Come chat with us, Lounge with us, talk bikes, rides, routes, or whatever.
Email us for the location.
See you on Sundays.
The Bicycle Lounge has a new informational flyer and a new mailing list.
We will also be announcing new Lounge hours following Saturation Fest: Sundays from Noon to 3 pm. Bring lunch or whatever you like.
Spread the word, and check back for updates.
We have been planning our involvement in Saturation Fest 2008, an arts festival in and around Downtown Riverside in October. We will be at Back To The Grind starting at 11AM on October 18. From 11 to 12, we will be doing our regular Bicycle Lounge things with our soon-to-be-outfitted “Mobile Repair Unit”. At 12, we will ride out for Tacos on what we call the Taco Sombrero Ride — all are welcome to join, but be aware that you ride at your own risk. After tacos, we will hold a “slow race” and a pinata smacking in the parking lot behind Back To The Grind.
At the event, we will have t-shirts available for purchase, spoke cards, lots of information about our organization and how to get involved, and a bicycle show — where you can check out the various bikes that we ride and learn why we love them so much.
Please come out and support us in our first public event.
Hello Everyone,
First off, thanks to all who have made this project so successful so quickly. We are committed to expanding The Bicycle Lounge and you have shown us that we definitely can and should do so.
Given how big the group has grown at The Bicycle Lounge, and given how chaotic it has become to host both it and BBQ Tuesday, we have decided to change the hours of operation. The Bicycle Lounge will now be open Saturdays from 9 AM - Noon. For one thing, this will help us provide better service, as it will be light out. For another thing, there will not be a BBQ going on at the same time, and so we can focus fully on bicycles, which should result in getting to more of the necessary repairs. Also, the local bike shop is open during these hours, so if we need to get parts, we can.
This will be effective immediately. The first Saturday hours of The Bicycle Lounge will be August 9. We will no longer open up the shop during BBQ Tuesday. Please spread the word.
Thanks for your understanding, and see you Saturday!
Brian & Tanya &co.
We promote socially conscious, healthy, and economical transportation for all members of our community by advocating safe and responsible bicycle use. We educate current and potential cyclists on both how the bicycle works and how to operate it effectively by assisting them in building and repairing their own projects.
Yesterday’s BBQ Tuesday was our Third Annual Somewhere-Around-The-Fourth Chili Festival. It was also a hugely successful evening at The Bicycle Lounge.
Many thanks to our friends Steve and Kimbra, who not only brought fantastic food, but also demonstrated their repair stand. On top of that, Steve stuck around in the shop to help our new friend Mondo fix up his ride: a new tire, a cleaner drivetrain, and a couple of lights later, he’s cruising in style. Mondo also has a radio show at KUCR, so check him out.
Also, our friend and LA bicycle advocate Alice Strong was our guest of honor at the BBQ. Thanks Alice for the inspirations and for the illuminating discussions about our shop and others like it. (It’s partly (or largely) Alice’s influence that got this project started to begin with.)
I’ve been working on my assignment from the board meeting: the mission statement. I sent out a preliminary draft today, which I’m sure we’ll work over quite a few times. A final version should be agreed upon at our next meeting.
Discussions with Jay The Neighbor this evening inspired an additional direction: certifications. We will be looking into how our staff / board might obtain credit for having attended seminars, etc., which should enhance our credibility to potential funding sources.
Today was our first official, organized board meeting. Following a leisurely morning bike ride, we congregated at Greg’s house for a BBQ and discussion about The Bicycle Lounge. We touched on many important aspects of getting this project started and the ins and outs of running the place.
Immediate needs include:
We will meet again in one month — likely in a more formal setting, and with a clearer focus — to report on the progress that we have made with our individual research assignments.
In all, it seemed to me like a reasonable start and we all appear to have a consistent view of what this can become and how to get it there.
Stay tuned….
In the past couple of weeks, we’ve gotten a lot more people involved with this project. Local bike gang, The Cycledelics, have been coming to BBQ Tuesday and adding their ideas and inspirations. Rob, of Rob’s Vintique, is entertaining the idea of selling more bicycles out of his vintage shop. And we’re finishing up our first Craigslist repair bike to sell at Rob’s place and dump more money into The Bicycle Lounge.
Our next step is to expand our hours to more than just Tuesdays during the BBQ. Sunday is the next most tempting day, so we have to work that out with everyone involved. Within the next month, there should be a more steady schedule.
In other news, lots more people are talking about biking to work (where I work). Some have approached me for advice and they all know about The Bicycle Lounge now — this means more people are interested in coming by to learn about tuning up their rides and such. This is all very good news for the Lounge.
Today we took a bit of a field trip. Tanya had to be in the Highland Park area anyway, so we coordinated with fellow bicycle advocate and enthusiast, Alice Strong, to visit her friends at The Bike Oven. Our goal was to get a sense of how they ran the business and maybe some ideas about layout of a shop and such. We soaked the place in for a little while and came up with a few good ideas for The Bicycle Lounge.
First, we recognized that we need to come up with a system to label the items in the shop. For example, The Bike Oven labels bikes that “need work” or that are “ready to ride” and so on. We will develop something similar for our space. Also, they have made good use of filing cabinets and what appear to be old map cases to hold parts. Good idea.
Alice tells us that there are just a few main people who keep the place operational. In that spirit, we need to establish our steering committee, both to develop the ideas that we got today and to staff the workshop a few days a week.
The Bike Oven is so busy that we hardly had a chance to talk to the operators. But we did get to witness how they get things done, including greeting people at the door, displaying bicycles in a rack on the sidewalk, and being generally incredibly helpful. Also, the size and layout indicate that we can make this thing work in the Bluewood Designs workshop — The Bike Oven is also a book store of sorts.
I remain unshakably optimistic.