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Sustainable Living Festival 2015

It’s only a few weeks away now.

The Sustainable Living Festival is on at Prince’s Wharf No. 1 on the 31st October and 1st of November.

Please come along and say hello at our marquee on the PW1 forecourt.

It’s great to have a chat about what we do, or even better what you’d like to do. So ride on down and take advantage of the valet bike parking as well, before you go off and find some more things to make you happier and healthier.

Please also check out our Auction Bikes 2015 page for your chance to get yourself or a friend the bike they’ll love.

See you soon.

The Electric Light Bike Orchestra

So would you like to be a part of the HBK Electric Light Bike Orchestra?

We know bikes are fun, making a bit of noise and playing with lights is fun and we know Dark Mofo will be fun so we’re going to put them all together and have a great night out.

HBK Electric Light Bike Orchestra

When: Friday 12th June. 9pm

What: Cruise the Dark Mofo waterfront with the Hobart Bike Kitchen’s Electric Bike Light Orchestra as they carve a dark sonic soundscape from the lights and darkness around them. Bring all of your bike lights and blinkys to be played by the ELBO.

Who: You , and any ‘performers’ who want to wield some weird darkness-controlled noise.

Please contact Lance or HBK directly to discuss this!

So what are we trying to do? We’re planning to build some bike fitted random sound generators, add a bunch of lights, mix with a group of friends and go out and see some of Dark Mofo.

We want you and friends to come and join us on the opening night of this years Dark Mofo to celebrate things dark and light and bike and noisy.

There will be a number of Dark Mofo events suitable for us to ride around to:
there is Radiant Heat and at Dark Park there will be a number of events such as Fire Organ by Bastiann Maris, Anthony McCall’s Solid Light Works, plus whatever else is happening around the waterfront.

It’s also a good bet that once you’ve ridden around in the cold for a bit you might need to find a fire and refreshments. We haven’t got a plan for that yet. Suggestions? Or we might just make it up as we go along.

So you can just grab your headlights and come along, or get as involved as you’d like. If you want to create your own bike instrument the more the merrier. ~~If you just go the old peg and card in the spokes, we’re not going to say no.~~

EDIT: Hi everyone we’ve had such an outstanding response that we need to modify the guidelines.

The ELBO will slowly cruise around the Dark MOFO waterfront whilst the orchestra carves a dark droning and shifting 3-dimensional soundscape from the bike lights of the riders who are with us. Dark sounds carved from bright lights.

We want everyone to come along with all of their bike lights on show, and to expect a visually bright, but aurally dark and discordant experience. The aim is light-controlled-sound on a bike, not bike-controlled-sound with lights if that makes sense to you.

We don’t want to descend into a chaotic cacophony of noise and tangled bikes. So please come with lights, we’ll provide the sound.

Here are some samples of what Lance has been able to come up with so far.
SynthJamWsg , Synthjam MonoTronJam

So please let us know if you want to join us. I’ll make a Facebook event and you’re invited.

If you have some technical sounds skills we’d love to hear from you. It’s only 4 weeks away and the more interesting instruments that can be built the more fun we’ll be having.

NB this is not an official Dark Mofo event, we think of it as Dark Mofo Fringe.

Bike Love,
Hobart Bike Kitchen

FREE Bike Maintenance Training Course

The Hobart Bike Kitchen is running a FREE Bike Maintenance Certificate Course over three consecutive Sundays. The course will be run from 12-1pm (with optional skills practice from 1pm-4pm) on Sunday the 3rd, 10th and 17th of August. Location is 130 Davey St, Hobart.

Check out the form for more details and registration info.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1d8X9q1DrE97e2YTMHEX47dSHj06HDijjKStBjhYVY7g/viewform

Speak up for Battery Point Walk & Cycleway

Comment period closes THIS THURSDAY.

Unless Council receive positive support for the proposal, a handful of Battery Point residents are likely to kill this great idea.

Bicycle Tasmania have set up a great page set up on their website about it http://www.biketas.org.au/speak_up_for_battery_point_walk_cycleway – including a super-easy-to-use, template email representation.

Would you like to join us for lunch?

Hobart Bike Kitchen is having a get together of all the “chefs” and partner organisations to catch up, share what’s happening in the bike world and yours and to see how we can do more good things to help build a stronger Hobart community.

Well that’s the broad plan and we’d love you to come along and join us over a delicious lunch in the sunny backyard of 130 Davey St.

It will be just on a year since we opened the new premises and it’s been great to realise some of the promise that the partnership with TWS promised, and to have had many new Hobart Bike Kitchen customers.

But it’s not just about what we’re doing, we want to hear ideas of how the partnerships we have established can grow.

We’re also hoping to encourage a few more “chefs” to join us. So if you would be interested in improving &/or sharing your bike maintenance skills please email and we’ll send you an invitation.

Proper chef Paul has already started looking at a menu. As he said we are a multi-cultural bunch and embrace a number of different diets, So here’s a couple of tasters from the menu just to encourage you along.
Felafels (Vegan, Gluten Free)
Potato and Kale Cakes (Vegan, Gluten Free)
Harira (Vegan, Gluten Free) – spicy Moroccan vegetable and chickpea soup
Fried Hokkien Noodles with Tofu and Vegetables (Vegan)

Bike Love,
Mark

How are we going?

Well it has been a while since a blog post, so are we still a going concern?

Happily, I can say we’re very much still in business. Actually we’ve been so busy that we’ve struggled for time to take photos and write blog posts hence the lack of new material.

Sunday Sessions are rocking along with many bikes coming and going and a great mix of people turning up.

We’ve had young guys following up the PULSE sessions Matt ran to get some reflectors and lights,
past session participants dropping in for a tune up,
Finn from England required a bike to take him round Tassie and eventual on to Queensland or Northern Territory…,
we’ve worked on Bike Polo bikes,
international students looking for a bike,
& various bikes for many happy riders

We have had a couple of Sundays where we haven’t been able to get a chef into the kitchen so please check the Upcoming Events widget on the left hand side of the page to confirm that a session is on, and where it might be in case we’re running the session elsewhere.

While I don’t have a bunch of pictures to illustrate that here are some of a lovely donation which we’re looking forward to finding a loving home.

Bike Love, HBK

Argosy - do you know where they're from — Argosy – do you know where they’re from

WP_20140130_20_45_57_Pro — Needs some love

Barn Fresh Bikes

It was such a great Sunday session, complete with pictures, that it deserves more than a quick facebook status so here’s Matt’s report from Sunday.

The Sunday session – 27th of the 10th 2013 – Scratch builds, Barn Fresh – Wheel rebuilds.

A balmy 20° greeted all comers including some regulars, two new volunteers, the Brumby family with some donations and a few bikes to tune plus plenty of newcomers with 12 bikes going out the door, 10 tune ups and 25 people through the yard, it was a busy day indeed!

Good thing Bernd was second chef along to help with a ute load of donations collected Saturday and Raf along later in the day to fit a rack to his bike.

Some late comers from two weeks ago, Milad,Hossein,Reza,Mostafo and Sayed that had a look at a few bikes at closing time were back in force today, five in number, and they were ready to take on a few challenges all required larger frame bikes and all quite happy to start their build from the frame up. Sayed was finishing a bike from two weeks ago. This weekend I think we raided every spares box and in true bike kitchen fashion, five great bikes were cooked up. Some strange combinations seem to work, a seven speed hub on a five-speed shift coupled with a three speed crank on what originally was two speed derailleur. The boys seemed happy to help each other out and with a flurry of tools and many hands the finished products were ridden home with smiles all round.

Zach a new volunteer on the day was thrown in the deep end with Ellen bringing in a barn fresh crusty old rust red classic complete with dynamo lighting system and was quite happy to spend the next two hours completely rebuilding it hubs, wheels, brakes, second-hand chain, cables second-hand grips and to my surprise the finished project rode out the door. I seriously thought it would take two weeks to build. Well done Zach & Ellen. Sorry I missed a photo of the finished product.

Over the last 3 weeks we have had a go at a stubborn hub with collapsed bearings – took the bull by the horns today, and with no suitable replacement wheel laced a new hub and the “wheel gods” were shining – trued up and back on to complete the repair on Sayed’s bike.

Warren dropped in to help – great help sorting for bits and help out – thanks

Geof also in to help and volunteer his time and expertise.

Shaadeh came in to adjust and finish of his bike with a few tyres required – how many puncture repairs did we do today? – all sorted and on the road again.

Elliot in for some bits to build a polo bike – sourced them all and build on the way.

Joel and his mate from Germany were in to build a bike but heading north so took there nearly complete projects home to finish – I think they are going to ride around Tassie on them!

We had Garry, Butler and Roland in building bikes but they were lost in the crowd so missed them on the way out!

Plenty of donations on the day – shoes, lights, gloves.

The Bike Kitchen is Alive and Kicking!

Regards Matt

Bike Auction 2013

Have you checked out the Auctions Bikes – 2013 page?

This would be our best collection of auction bikes yet, and we’re looking for two great auctions at the Sustainable Living Festival on 9th and 10th November.

But we only have 15 minutes each day, so there’ll be no long sales pitches, no slow negotiations, no masterful auctioneers working the crowd – it’s going to be best bid in, yes, Going, Going Gone!

So make sure you get along to the auctions, or get your bids in to us beforehand either by email or at the HBK marquee on the day at the Festival.

Please spread the news as the funds we raise from the auction keep HBK running (insurance, incorporation, registrations, tools, consumables, etc… ).

So the better we do at the auction means more services we have to offer, and that you can keep benefitting from HBK.

Structured Sunday…for bike organising

It was a spring clean sort of a Sunday at HBK this weekend. Fortunately the strong winds of Saturday had abated, and the forecast rain stayed away.

At long last we had the ‘bones’ for the keenly awaited bike hanging structure – 6 pairs of steel posts and about 50m of hardwood rails combine to make a 13 metre long shelter. We had a long roll of shadecloth, hundreds of gang nails, dozens of hooks, several drills, a ladder, and a vague plan. Our goal was to provide our oft-rained on bikes with some semblance of shelter, and the ability to have their running gear free from weedy entanglements.

Ben, Matt and Maddie did a huge job cutting and fixing the shadecloth, ably helped out by Alex and Aaron. They were later joined by Lance and Bernd who assisted with the drilling, and screwing in of hooks (until we ran out!). Lance and Ben then made significant inroads on sorting of bikes. It seemed appropriate that the first bike hung was a girls Huffy “Show Off” (geez it was heavy).

The planned configuration is to have kids bikes closest to the shed, and a dedicated bay at the far end for ‘project bikes’ – those that have tags on and have been worked on in past 3 weeks. We also have a heap of frames which we’ve hung quite closely in the middle section, in order to make best use of the space. Over next few weekends a few ‘cull or keep’ decisions will be made with regard to a heap of kids bikes and MTBs.

As you see in the photos 1 and 3 it was a great day of ‘VP’ (visual progress) and to think we also had about 14 people there at times working on a whole range of bikes – classic ladies step throughs, polo bikes in various states of repair and more.

So if you are thinking of coming to HBK this coming weekend it would be ace if you could lend a hand to fix the last bit of shadecloth. The sooner we get this job out of the way the sooner we get to fix bikes.

2_Shadecloth up and drilling begins — 2 Shadecloth up and drilling begins

4_view from the kiddies end — 4 view from the kiddies end

5_neatly ordered frames — 5 neatly ordered frames

6_Aaron working on his steed — 6 Aaron working on his steed

Supersized Sunday

We had a plan but why should that get in the way of some HBK bike loving.

As you can read below and check out the photos it was a great day to get some bikes fixed, but we do have to complete the sorting and moving of bikes, move the green waste and getting the bike racking completed.

So if you are thinking of coming to HBK this weekend please be aware that bike fixing will be a lower priority to doing the other tasks. That doesn’t mean don’t come. Please come along and lend a hand. The sooner we get the other chores out of the way the sooner we get to fix bikes.

~~~~

It was a supersized Sunday at HBK this weekend.

The sun came out and so did the cyclists seeking some HBK bike love.

Matt and Maddie did a huge job helping out the punters, we must have had 20 people there at times working on a whole range of bikes, classic ladies step through getting attnetion, a dad working on kids bike, one of the 22″ 3 speed folders going, bunch of road bikes in various states of repair and more.

We also had a assistant chef, who had got a bike recently and came back to lend a hand.

Apologies that I’ve forgotten his name, but Matt will be able to enlighten us.

Mark and Ben got the bikes moved from their previous area and roughly sorted into piles. We’ve got about the right number of MTB/flat bar cruisers, good number of kids bikes, a mixed assortment opf the retro/classics bikes but probably too many frames with a lot of work to do, and very few road bikes.

We did give a trailer load of bikes to Ant Edler and the Bikes for Africa project, though not as many as might have thought.

We also have a heap of frames which we’ll have to decide are worth keeping or not as well as a heap of kids bikes not worth retaining.

Bernd and Ben then got into the tree removal, removing the large woody weed we had many of the bikes stored under.

Hope the thumb is feeling better Bernd.

We didn’t have the time to take the green waste away on Sunday, so next Sunday when we’ll have to have a no. of tip runs.