Come and get it.
Check out this article from the East Bay Express last week on Arizmendi Pizza in Oakland! They make some delicious food and are also a locally owned worker cooperative. Its nice when other worker coops get some press. I think the history of the Arizmendi cooperatives is really very exciting too. But don’t take my word for it… read on.
Happy New Year!
We’ve rebuilt the shop, again.
And it is time we have a new schedule for basic bike maintenance classes at Box Dog Bikes. As usual there are three classes: Know Your Bike, Brakes & Gears, and The Bicycle Wheel. All classes are limited in size and hands on. This means you need to bring your bike so you can work on your bike and learn about your bike’s needs. The idea behind these classes is that the better you know how your bike functions, the better you will be able to keep it in-tune and lasting longer. Below is a brief description of all of the classes:
Know Your Bike: Learn all the names of the parts of your bike; learn how to replace an inner tube (fix a flat); learn the wonders of the rag, cleaning your bike keeps your brakes working better, and your chain shifting more reliably.
Brakes & Gears: Learn the basics of your braking and shifting systems. We learn how to replace cables, how cable housing functions, and how to tune your brakes and gears.
The Bicycle Wheel: Adjusting hubs and truing rims. We learn how to keep your hubs spinning smoothly without wobble, and how to straighten and round your rims.
Finally, here is a listing of when the classes will be held in February:
Tuesday 7:30pm-9:30pm February 2nd Know Your Bike
Tuesday 7:30pm-9:30pm February 9th Brakes and Gears
Tuesday 7:30pm-9:30pm February 16th The Bicycle Wheel
All classes are at Box Dog Bikes; 494 14th Street, in SF. Call the shop 415-431-9627 to sign up. Each class is $35, or you can take all three for $90.
This past Saturday myself and 120 other people rode SFR’s first brevet of 2010. It was the Point Reyes Lighthouse route again. A few showers, a few rainbows, a great day on the bike. The next one is February 6th. It goes out to Petaluma and Tomales before returning to the GG Bridge, 200k.
…in full this time. The contractor is out, and our floor is fixed. We will be open normal hours going forward. Monday – Friday, 11a-7p. Saturday, 10a – 5p. Sunday 12noon – 5p.
We look forward to seeing all of you going forward.
Thank You, the BDB staff
Friends and neighbors of 14th Street! A neighbor and friend of the shop told me that their landlord is intending to cut down this tree just houses away from Box Dog Bikes. A couple years ago the city took down a palm tree further down the block and now this tree is threatened. This tree would benefit from a pruning; to keep it safe from pests, limb decay, and falling on wires. But the tree itself should stay.
San Francisco needs all the trees it can get. What can you do? Our neighbor suggests you send a letter to San Francisco’s Bureau of Urban Forestry stating that you protest the cutting down of this tree at 466 14th Street. Include your name and address: SFDPW, Bureau of Urban Forestry, 2323 Cesar Chavez St. SF, CA 94124. The deadline for letters is January 30th, write it soon.
…and construction, and bad weather.
This came as a letter from the Cooperative Development Fund via the USFWC. I’m blog posting this because I think it is important to get the message to a wide audience. Maybe you can help.
“As most of you now know, earlier this week a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the island of Haiti. Most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, has been destroyed and millions of people have lost their homes, workplaces, and family members. The extent of the devastation is severe; many of Haiti’s coops have been severely damaged and many of those they serve are in severe need.
The Cooperative Development Fund (CDF) has a fund strictly for the purpose of assisting people in times like these -The Cooperative Emergency Fund. Over the last 20 years, CDF has raised over $275,000 for cooperative relief and rebuilding efforts for ten different disasters. The CEF was founded to give stability and constancy to CDF’s emergency relief efforts, many of which are of a longer-term rebuilding nature. The Cooperative Emergency Fund will be donating all monies received from here until July 2010 to help the rebuilding efforts in Haiti. CDF will be collaborating with international cooperative relief efforts in this endeavor to rebuild those coops afflicted by this disaster.
Please assist us with our cause. Donating through the front page of CDF’s website is quick and easy. We ask that you visit the homepage of http://www.cdf.coop and make a donation through our GOOGLE CHECKOUT function on the right hand side of our website. Your support is extremely appreciated.
Thank you,
The Cooperative Development Foundation”
Box Dog Bikes takes pride in being a worker cooperative. This means the worker owners share the profits. We also maintain democracy in the workplace through participatory management and consensus based decisions.
More and more articles are being posted about worker cooperatives in alternative and mainstream media. A great source is the Jascon website. Today an article was released in the Christian Science Monitor. The article is a quick read and covers many topics. From Michael Moore’s latest release, the Spanish worker cooperatives of Mondragon, home care and cleaning cooperatives of NYC and SF, it closes by articulating ways the U.S. government could get involved in helping out the current economic woes of its citizens by supporting the worker cooperative movement. Click here to read on!
From January 9th – January 25th Box Dog Bikes will be open for limited hours on a daily basis. Please call the shop to confirm hours before you come down. So far the construction has just limited our morning hours and we have been able to function as a full service bike shop in the evening hours. For this period our service department will be sized down to one bench, so all repairs are on a first come first serve basis. Because of space limitations the DIY bench will be closed and we will not be offering our regular bicycle repair classes for January.
In review:
- The sub-floor is being replaced by the landlord, so we are working around the construction hours.
- Please come by, we are still here.
- Please call ahead for hours, our phone number is 415-431-9627.
- We will be operating our service department, albeit in a scaled down capacity.
- DIY bench is closed for January
- Bicycle Repair classes resume in February.
- We are expecting to resume full service and regular business hours on January 25th.
Thanks for your support during this time and we hope to see you soon.
