We’re starting a community bike project in our city this summer, primarily sponsored by the bike coop. Basically they will be loaner bikes anyone can sign out, and we’re hoping to get some local businesses on board to check the bikes out, and to sponsor the cost of a bike in exchange for advertising on the signage on the bike they sponsored. There will be 12 bikes to start, the prototype of which I finished building today when the Cetma 3-rail I’d been waiting on came in. Here’s a couple of pics for you SS townie/cargo bike pervs
More in this flickr set http://www.flickr.com/photos/happytrigg … 147650651/
Love the idea and the bike. Just how big is the advertising going to be? Sized to be attached to the sides of the basket?
All the bikes will have a sign on them saying a little something about Montpelier community bikes. The sponsored bikes will also say something like “This Bike Sponsored by Hunger Mountain Coop” or some such. The placement of the signage is yet to be determined, but I’m thinking on the sides of the basket makes the most sense. The other option is in the main triangle.
Smaller would probably be better (most people don’t want to look like a riding billboard) and you have to remember that if you put it in the main triangle that the sign will be blocked half the time by peoples’ legs.
Looks like a pretty nice build. Make sure you take off that outer ring though, or at least grind off the teeth.
I really like the idea of community bikes, mad props to you for helping set it up.
Can’t remove the ring. It’s a riveted crank. Too bad too, I’d really rather not have it there.
you could grind it off where it meets the crank spider if you wanted. Thats what I would do if you have access to the tools.
Sounds like a good idea. Having a quality bike that can be borrowed is nice. Yellowbikes tried that but seems to fail miserably many times (including Atlanta after a few good years).
If you’re looking for ideas for community bike projects, some of my friends did one with the Sopo Bike Co-Op where they installed nice bike racks in front of any business that wanted one. They got the racks from some distributer for cheap and installed them with an impact drill and wrench. Total cost for the business was about $125 for everything. They’ve installed around 20-30 in Atlanta last I checked. With no help from the city, and as far as I can see, no blocking by the city either.
It is really great to see a rack in front of every store I want to go to.
Get in touch with them through http://www.sopobikes.org if you want more info.
you are putting cetma racks on all the bikes?!
That’s yet to be determined. This bike is a prototype, the final bikes will only have one rack. we’ll try it with both front and rear mounted baskets, but I hate carrying a heavy load in the rear, and I want to make the case that the front rack will make them all more useful for folks to run errands on. The 3 rail Cetma is the most expensive part of the bike, but I think it really makes the bike a lot more useful, and is therefor a worthwhile investment. The more useful people find them the more support we’ll get for the program, so in my opinion even though they’re expensive the Cetma racks may well help this project succeed.
