Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Bike Mechanics Wanted

HANDY WITH A BIKE?
Original image: http://sicycle.wordpress.com

We need some mechanical help with our fleet! Since our bikes are seeing active use, some pretty typical repairs are regularly needed. Think you can help? SHOUT OUT! Your usual (and potentially sometimes UNUSUAL) bike repairs are called for: making sure brakes are in order, tightening bolts, fixing tires, keeping the chain in good repair—anything and everything that can happen to a bike can just as well happen to one of ours. Think you can contribute to this effort? We can use any and all repair people: from the relatively familiar to the wizardly talented. Let us know by e-mailing bikesurfberlin@gmail.com!

You’ll not only be a ROCK STAR for doing so, you’ll also be doing all of the BikeSurf Berlin community a ton of good. After all we’re nothing if we don’t have the bikes which drive our org. Ride on!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Downsizing the BSB bike fleet

Guess the BSB team member competition
We have decided to significantly reduce the bike fleet at BikeSurfBerlin from the end of August.   With more bikes, come more repair and logistical problems, along with more costs.  Because we still are not reaching our fundraising and sustainable participation goals for the current number of bikes, in order to reduce our headaches and improve standards we will now provide approximately 10 bikes for short term BikeSurfing.  BSB's wheels turn only because of  volunteer pedaling and donations, and unfortunately right now maintaining sustainability for the project means fewer wheels.  

Some of the other bikes will still be available from Leila (exchange store in Mitte) and from BSB on longer term loan (>1month) only. 
We also have some bikes to sell, to reduce the need to store the extra bikes and to generate funds. All the money we raise from any source goes into making this project better (there's no profit, just "the project"), so we will be transforming a few bikes into much needed capital in order to improve the quality of the remaining bikes.  

We would dearly love to provide all of the current 24 BSB bikes for surfing, as there is clearly a demand, but we need to be realistic about the path to providing a sustainable service with our current resources.  Right now this means shifting to an emphasis on quality over quantity.

As BSB is a community project, your thoughts on this decision are most welcome.

We have moved to a new website

Hold onto your hats, folks, its time we got our own brand new website. Please update your bookmarks or how you link with us to: www.bike...