Bicycle Bee, October 20 – 22, 2006
Preparations for the Vancouver Bicycle Bee were underway for weeks. It was conceived as a grass-roots, community-created free school to match riderless bikes with people wanting a fun, fast, free, and efficient mode of transportation. Everyone would go home having learned a few things, taught a few things, and made some great connections along the way.
So people came together at potluck meetings to brainstorm, accept tasks, schedule workshops, and find spaces that would accommodate all those expected to attend. A modest amount of money was raised for basic expenses. One person lent their talents to design a logo, another created a website, and posters and flyers were printed and distributed around town. Rescued bikes and parts were donated and hauled in from suburban garages. Tools were borrowed with the promise of their safe return. Word spread inviting people to share in a weekend of community-created bike workshops, and at last, the weekend of the Bicycle Bee arrived.
Its name borrowed from the tradition of sewing or quilting bees, the event also shared the community-oriented ethos of skill sharing and social-izing while creating unique, functional objects from reused materials.
Saturday morning was crisp and bright. Fueled by caffeine and thumping music, three volunteers set to work in a Strathcona kitchen making lunch for 200 people. By noon, riders with trailers arrived to distribute the food to three workshop locations within the neighbourhood.
By that time, volunteer instructors had already wrapped up the first work-shops of the day, such as “Bike Anatomy 101” and “How to make rain capes and shoe covers.” At the “Secret Location,” a Hastings Street storefront, a half-dozen people were learning to fix flat tires. One block away at the parkade beneath the Pivot Legal Society, straight rows of shining tools, each outlined carefully in black ink, rested on paper covered tables. “These are not our tools” reminded the sign at the table’s end. Participants with varied mechanical experience assessed, repaired, and assembled bikes hanging in four borrowed repair stands.
As the October afternoon sun warmed the yard of the third site at the Purple Thistle Centre, a flurry of chopping, grinding, and welding birthed mutant vehicles to the wobbling satisfaction of their firsttime freakbike rider/owners. Upstairs, a bike jewelry-making session gently spilled over into a cycling advocacy workshop. A dozen people encircled a table of bicycle chain links, inner tubes, cogs, and fishing line, crafting belts, earrings, cuffs, and other adornments. While their eyes and hands focused on cutting, stitching, and tying, they discussed how to alert the city to dangerous intersections, get potholes repaired, and generally how to speak up and make the city a better, safer place in which to cycle.
The ample food allowed people to continue working on projects and assisting one another throughout the day. That night everyone was wel-comed to a large studio for a screening of the 1979 cycling cult classic, “Breaking Away.” Popcorn and beer flowed, and the group buzzed with camaraderie, enthusiasm, and a sense of accomplishment.
By Sunday evening, after another full day of workshops, many bikes had been built or repaired, tools, materials, opinions, and food had been shared, and laughter and names had been exchanged. Clearly, the weekend’s goals had been achieved through the presence and participation of everyone involved. The Bicycle Bee was a resounding success – measureable in the beaming faces at the end of that last day.
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