Bike!Bike! Day 1 Recap (Friday, Aug. 13)

It's important to set the scene, so that's why I've included a gratuitous shot of the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower above. Have I sufficiently transported you, the reader? OK, here's a rundown of the Friday activities at Bike!Bike!:

I'll try to avoid making this a comparison of my experience at Bike!Bike! last year in Minneapolis vs. this year, but that will probably come up from time to time. I apologize in advance. Also, I will try to use Canadian spellings and metric units whenever possible to make sure you realize that I am in a foreign country and deeply entrenched in its culture and idiom. Apologies also for that.

We rolled up to the Bike Pirates shop and found the door locked, and rushed back to the car to re-check our instructions. Sure enough, we were supposed to meet at the Free Gallery, which was just across Bloor Street (which isin a pretty interesting part of Toronto). The Gallery has preserved the hardware store marquee of the previous tenants, which makes it kind of hard to spot on first glance, but we got it figured out eventually. Geoffrey got us registered and sent us to the back of the gallery to pick out a loaner bike. I found a CCM (roughly the Canadian equivalent of Schwinn) Supreme 10-speed city bike, and Carl found a custom-painted Bike Pirate mountain frame with slick tyres. Soon afterward, we found ourselves locking them high on a nearby fence to prove how hip and citified we are:

 We're about five miles north and west of downtown Toronto, and just to the west of what appears to be in Koreatown. After registering, I realized that the first session that I wanted to attend, Mobile Bike Clinics, was actually located at the Hart House on the University of Toronto campus, which appeared to be just ten blocks away or so per the provided Bike!Bike! map.

Once I started the ride, though, I realized that many of the streets weren't shown on the map, and I was actually on a three-mile ride. No big deal, but by the time I found Hart House, I was hopelessly late. Hart House was also a huge 19th-century stone building which took me 20 minutes or so to find the proper room in. Mobile Bike Clinics was pretty much over by the time I rolled in, but oh well. It was led by a gentleman from Harrisburg (Pa., I believe) who fixes kids bikes from his organization's mobile shop. Good stuff! Maybe some day TBP will get something similar started.

Carl texted me to let me know he would be attending Battlefield:Consensus, so I headed to the Co-Op Incubator session at the Diabolo Coffeeshop, just across the Quad from Hart House. Here's a picture of the lovely men and women who attended:

The session was led by Tito from the Sopo bike co-op in Atlanta. It was more of a group discussion surrounding the difficulties of starting and maintaining a space and organization. Here are some of my notes (the short night had really taken effect by this point, and I had trouble staying awake):

• The grizzled gent in red emphasized: "Non-profit or not, we're all running businesses," and emphasized that your board should have a business specialist on it
• An ongoing theme for me at this conference has been the need for volunteer orientation, and having minimum requirements and training for volunteers, and this came up in this session as well
• It can be helpful to seem less political and more community-oriented when asking for help, which isn't really a problem for TBP, but can be for more outwardly-radical organizations
• Space is crucial for having a successful organization, a lot of what you can and can't do is dictated by the limitations or lack thereof of your space

Carl and I met up at the Campus Co-op house where we were served a delicious lunch of salad, hummus, veggies, brown rice and fruit:

We went our separate ways after lunch, and I went to How to Teach Hands-off, which was pretty straightforward. It was led collectively by three folks from different organizations in Montreal, Providence, R.I., and Toronto, from left:

We went through a helpful exercise where several volunteers had to explain to the rest of us how to cut a mango without doing it themselves. It drove home the point of making sure we're helping without doing the repairs for our members. Here are some of my notes:

• Building Confidence – need to be beacon of hope for anyone who walks in the door, confidence can be shattered easily, need to cheer on even the smallest accomplishment
• Competence – don't be afraid to call in more help for an unfamiliar repair. Two main concepts that are good for directing someone
• Information won't be communicated unless there's a path from something that's known to something that's not known.
• Chain: need to make connection; pretty easy to perceive what they know and move into the land of what they don't know
• Information will not be communicated unless it's done slowly

Carl and I joined up for the last seminar of the day, which was supposed to be a tour of five DIY shops in Toronto. Here are some pictures of Bike Pirates, the first stop:

After a sometimes-harrowing journey in a group of about 50 cyclists, the next stop was Bike Share.  Here are some pictures:

The time allotment for the session was already shot by that point, and we needed to figure out where we were staying for the evening, so Carl and I separated from the group. After making plans for a rendezvous with our host for later that evening, we made a little tour of downtown Toronto and the Lake Ontario harbor. Here are some select shots:

Just needed to check the clock for a bit.

One week too early to catch this event, unfortunately....

On the boardwalk, etc., etc.

A Chinese junk?

Gratuitous water shot.

More of that insidious yoga graffiti.

We grabbed some beer at the LCBO, some falafel at a little shop, and by that time we were exhausted and ready to meet up with our host so we could crash on his floor. More on Saturday's goings-on are coming soon...