Category: Announcement

Its taken a long time, but at last it’s really happening!

it was a big day on the Hobart Bike Kitchen calendar – the slab has had a couple of weeks to cure, we’ve got some big cardboard boxes of shed and we’ve got some great HBK volunteers.

Thanks to everyone who turned up. It might not have been an Amish barn raising but at the end of the day we’ve got ourselves a 3m x 6m shed full of possibilities.

We have a couple of weekends to go with some ridying up to do, shelving, work benches and the like so keep an eye out for our next couple of working bees.

So here’s a bunch of photos of getting through the day.

Well, we’ve got a selection of new bike tools, a shiny new shed still in its box, now we just need to get some construction underway. HBK is going to need capable hands over coming weekends to make our new home a reality, starting with this Saturday morning.

1. Australia Day Working Bee to help prepare new home for HBK

Q: What could be more Aussie than listening to the Hottest 100 on Australia Day?

A: Helping out a good cause in the morning to prepare you for a more relaxing afternoon listening to the best tunes of 2012!

When: Saturday 26 January, 9am-noon

Objective: We need to dig out the foundation area for the concrete slab that the shed will sit on – this is a job that should take 4 able-bodied adults about 2 hours to complete. We also need to limb a tree that is a bit to close to our future shed (So ideally, someone with a chainsaw and a trailer that needs some firewood, as we have to remove it off site).

2. February working bees (weekend days only) to build new home for HBK.

On weekends in February we will be aiming to complete the following tasks:

· Prepare the foundation (this involves carting sand to site and compacting it, and laying waterproof membrane)

· Pour and finish the concrete slab (6m x 3m), so we would appreciate anyone that has experience in this stepping up for this (or put in touch with people who can)

· Erect the shed

Please contact Ben Clark on 6223 6118, or 0488 625 586, if you can assist, or email hobartbikekitchen@gmail.com

If emailing please indicate your availaiblity and skills you can contribute. Even an hour of your time would be greatly appreciated. The more people we can get helping the sooner we can focus on our core role of fixing and refurbishing bikes!!

— Cheers Ben

Hobart Bike Kitchen was very happy to be able to help provide a bike for Hussein. He is in Hobart and because of Dept. of Immigration restrictions and confidentiality reasons; I can’t give you much information about him other than he is from Afghanistan and is very thankful for the gift of the bike. It means that he can access the city a lot easier and that will help him greatly with his efforts to get employment.His current work means starting before public transport can get him there and he was walking an hour and a half to get there.

We hope it’s a small gesture to making Hussein and others feel welcome in Hobart, and that he enjoys a bit more sleep in the mornings.

Bike Love to you all, HBK

Hobart Bike Kitchen won’t be running Sunday Sessions or bike workshops but we will be at the Falls Festival at Marion Bay in more than spirit.

Check out the Festival Village for lots of cool stuff including the pedal powered stage setup by the wonderful folks from Magnificent Revolution Oz.

We’ve done enough to supply some bikes, they’re supplying all the smart stuff, and hopefully you’ll provide some of the power.

So check out the Festival Village and get yourself some entertainment, some exercise and maybe learn something from the the MagRev crew.

 

With the help of grants from the Tasmanian Community Fund and Hobart City Council, the Bike Kitchen is moving to a new location in the city.

We need handy helpers to assist with building our new home. We expect this to start before Christmas, in a series of weekend working bees. Tasks that we need help for include:

• Site preparation – digging holes, clearing ground, laying pipes for plumbing;
• Mixing and pouring concrete for footings, and
• Assembling a kit shed.

If you can help, please send us an email at hobartbikekitchen@gmail.com and please identify any ‘handy skills’ you can contribute, and whether there are particular weekend days that suit you best. 

Hi everyone, we’d love to see you at the Hobart Bike Kitchen Inc. AGM

Notice of General Meeting & 2011/12 Annual General Meeting

to be held at New Sydney Hotel, 2nd October 5:30 pm

Business of General Meeting – Audit Exemption

Business of AGM – Apologies, Confirmation of Minutes, Annual Reports, Elections

Full details of AGM can be seen in the Constitution (Rule 11)

Nominations for positions will be accepted until the start of the meeting.

We’ll also be able to give an update on plans for the wonderful new HBK site, or just talk about bikes and stuff.

Please come along, it won’t take long and we want to hear from all of you.

 

 

It’s been a while between posts, so whats been going on?

Well the title sums it up, it’s been 3 lovely years but the time has come to say Goodbye Seaview Ave.

It is amazing how much has happened under the Hobart Bike Kitchen banner since we got started and Gus convinced Liam that a few bikes in the backyard and some friendly bike maintenance was a good idea.

We’ve literally passed on hundreds of bikes, we’ve held a Sunday Session virtually every weekend since then and have had a wonderful time doing so.

Liam has been a generous and understanding landlord and his support has enable HBK to find it’s feet, and to prove that there is a need for, and community support for what we’re doing.

Liam is now travelling around and wasn’t going to be onsite as much so we needed to give the backyard back to the vegies and the animals.

Taroona has been a great venue for HBK as the community has lots of people who have liked what we’re doing and come along to get bikes or learn skills, others have donated and it’s been really positive.

However, we do recognise that it works well if you’ve got transport to get there or your bike is working but if you need to get a bike for transport then we’re a little hard to get to. So we’ve been looking to find a more central venue that you can get to easily.

Also we like to get ourselves setup a bit better in terms of storage, work areas, coping with bad weather, …

So we have been looking for another venue. We have a venue which we’re sure will be great but are still working through planning/building issues before the new site is up and running. More details when we can. So in the meantime we wont be running Sunday Sessions or taking donations.

Please have patience with us as we’re very busy behind the scenes getting this established.

We also hope to run some one-off sessions at various venues. So if you are organising an event where you’d like some friendly bike maintance vibe please get in touch and maybe we can work something out.

So to sum up, this is not an obituary, Hobart Bike Kitchen is moving on and changing. We hope to bigger and better things.

It is a chance though to thank Liam for all his support. I’m not sure if he envisaged what HBK would grow to but I do know that he ensured that HBK got off to a good start and that our efforts will mirror his in the promotion of all things healthy and cycling.

I’d also like to thank everyone who responded to our request for help with the packup and move. We’ve accumulated a fair bit of stuff in our time and assessing, packing, loading & unloading it was a task beyond the core group of chefs in the time we had. But that is an example of how we see Hobart Bike Kitchen, it isn’t a bike club for a few backyard bike repairers it’s a community of people who want to support more people on more bikes in a friendly, cooperative, supportive, sustainable way.

So please stay in touch, come back to the site in the near future for updates on what we’re doing and please come along and join us when we’re back to normal service.

 

We’ve just had a great day at PULSE.

Lance, Steve & Mark and a bunch of keen bike riders had a great afternnon of bike fixing.

I think we surpassed ourselves and by the end of the afternoon a dozen bikes were ridden away. That would be the most bikes that we’ve got through in one day.

So thanks to everyone who took part, and to all those who have donated to us and made this possible.

We’d like to also thank PULSE for making us welcome and getting everyone along.

There is a repeat session next Friday so if you’re looking for a bike get in touch with PULSE or MRC so that we can plan ahead for next week.

Here are some photos from a terrific afternoon.

While we haven’t been busy on the blog we ceratinly have out in the Bike Kitchen backyard.

There have been plenty of Sunday Sessions (just remember to check the Upcoming Sessions list to see what’s happening) helping put many bikes out on the road, and a considerable amount of cleaning up. Thanks to all those who have helped with making the backyard look more inviting.

One of the frequently asked questions is can we help/what do we know about electric bikes.

We can recommend our friends at http://www.eco-bikes.com.au. Tell Ahmet that Bike Kitchen sent you 🙂

But here is a post about doing it yourself with a conversion kit. Convert your bike to an e-bike!.
Sure worth noting that one of the suggestions is “In fact, the best type of bike is a RECYCLED bike, so we are minimising the need to buy a whole new bike!
So we’d love to see you grab a Bike Kitchen bike and give this a go and then let us know how it all went.