De Capitani Benjamin O’Connor Peter Lenz Vikor
Bicycle repair-shop at ETH Zentrum Short summary There are many affiliates of ETH, both students and staff, who own a bicycle but don't use it due to small defects. Those defects could be easily fixed with a little knowledge about the technical components of a bicycle and the right tools. Imparting the basic knowledge is quite easy, especially to the affiliates of a technical university. But the right tools are very seldom in average households, they are expensive and a single person utilizes them only a few times per year. By offering those affiliates a roofed, fully equipped, supervised station to repair their bicycles themselves, we want to motivate them to fix and use the bicycle for the daily commuting from and to the ETH.
Project aim After many dialogues with other students and ETH-employees who complained about the commuting situation (unpredictable traffic, overcrowded public transport) we realized that many defective and bedraggled bicycles are stored in cellars or bicycle racks just because of some minor damages like loose brakes, flat tires or ungreased chains. Those bicycles will typically stay out of order just because their owners only know little about the correct maintenance and repair and even more because they do not have the necessary tools and spare parts at hand. To resolve these two problems, the lack of knowledge and tools, and to get the bicycles back on the streets, we thought about a supervised repair-it-yourself station on the ETH campus. The projects main target is to increase the number of ETH affiliates who own a bicycle and actually use it. But in addition we also will work hard on effectuating other positive consequences of the repair-shop: We want to raise cyclist’s awareness of roadworthy bicycles and increase the overall road safety. As a side effect we would build up a cyclist community for exchange and advice. A repair-shop would facilitate mending in multiple ways. By supplying the quite expensive special tools, spare parts and easy understandable DIY-instructions almost all minor defects become repairable for laymen. And even more complex problems or uncertainties due to the lack of experience, can be resolved by the adviser's help or by tips from other cyclists.
Project outline We found two projects that almost matched our basic concept: The Swiss cyclists association ProVelo in Basel offers some repair-shops connected with a spare parts-shop and the EPFL has a “Point Vélo”, a repair-shop run by students. Based on some ideas from the aforementioned projects, we developed some keywords to describe the main concept of the bicycle repair-shop: Non-profit The idea of non-profit is quite obvious. This project is only focused on improving the current situation of too many unused bicycles. Both, margins for resale and any service fees would jeopardize the projects lifetime and it's impact on the number of unused bicycles. DIY Repairs or with the help of advisors A bicycle is a not very complex construction. Most of the modules are easy to understand therefore the main part of the repairs would be do-it-yourself. If somebody is not willing to understand how his/her bicycle works, we’d recommend a professional bicycle shop. Our repair shop would includes plain instruction sheets with pictures. With the aid of these instructions and the provided tools people with basic manual knowledge can repair most parts of their bicycle themselves. For people who want to repair their bicycle themselves but don't have any experience yet, people who don't understand the instructions or have to deal with exceptional problems/defects (checking the lights, exchange of the bottom bracket, internal gear hubs), we will have very skilled volunteer advisers assisting the cyclists with their work. The adviser will supervise the repair shop during regular service hours and resell more expensive spare parts. The VSETH-employee Ralph Ludwig and his employer, the VSETH, already agreed on a long-time engagement in this project. Opening Hours Since there is up to now no solution for a lockable/traceable toolbox, there would only be supervised opening hours. This also depends greatly on the number of volunteers we can gather. Mostly, students and Staff are occupied during normal office hours therefore we came up with basic opening hours from 6-9pm with the option of an emergency service at other times (phone call to one of the advisors).
Rough implementation plan The whole realization of the repair-shop depends on the three factors 'startup financing', 'space ' and 'volunteers'. Aware of this dependency, we approached the VSETH-board for their support. As already mentioned in the project outline, they agreed to contribute the space and a co-organizer and advisor. The basic timeline would look as follows: Task/Week
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Acquire space Order tools Find volunteers Assemble shop Promotion Open shop The first step after the promise for the startup financing is the acquirement of the space for the repair-shops. Several points have to be considered: • • • •
Easy access, preferably by bike. Easy to find Include at least a sink nearby. Preferably somewhere near a hose and drain (cleaning bikes can get dirty)
After (and in parallel to) the space acquirement, the next step is to find sufficient volunteers for the opening hours. Some students who participate in Project21 or the GUV already showed interest. As soon as we have the space to run the repair shop we will start to acquire and assemble all the needed tools according to the list appended and install them. The acquisition and installation wouldn’t take more than four weeks. About three weeks before we open the 'repair-shop's doors' officially, we will start publicity campaign (flyers, placards, article in students newspaper). To increase the repair-shops popularity and to enlarge the cyclist’s community at the ETH, we already thought about several events, activities and features for the repair shop, for example: • • • • •
A tube-o-mat, both market leaders Continental and Schwalbe build them up all over Europe. Courses, on how to repair bicycles, held by professionals or the advisers. Bicycle health check. On one day per semester the volunteers check the bicycles for defects. Flea market for used bicycles (would be especially welcomed by exchange students). 24h accessible tool box with basic tools. Requires sophisticated tracking system.
Costs The Idea of the repair-shop is to offer a fully equipped workbench to every affiliate of the ETH. This Idea includes that the tools have to be of a good quality. Cheaper but less durable tools would result in very high running costs. So it is not very astonishing that the acquisition of tools generates the main part of the costs. CHF Bicycle specific Tools
Source
3500.See appended List
Workshop equipment Running cost (spare parts, defect tools)
2200.500..-/ year
We want to provide a working place that makes clean and solid work with professional tools possible. The initial investment would run at around 5700 CHF. But those costs are insignificant regarding the whole impact on health, emission savings, rising of the awareness for road safety and sustainable mobility and the formation of an active cyclists community.
