mike.

The Bike Guru

I’ve been pretty busy recently working on a new website for The Bike Guru, Wivenhoe’s local bicycle mechanic, coffee shop proprietor to be and all round nice guy.

Home:

Workshop:

I’m selling (one of) my bike(s)

So i’ve got way too many bikes and want to get another. I’ve also got no money so that means I need to free up some space in the stable to make room, and so this is that.

I’m selling my 1970s Raleigh Super Sport, specs are as follows:

• 23” Frame, electric blue with silver highlights and original stickers etc.
• 27” Maillard 36 spoke wheels, pretty much new tubes and tyres.
• Raleigh Custom A cranks, Huret 10 speed gears.
• Weinmann colour coded brakes (500 front, 730 rear)
• cork bar tape
• Lights front and rear

If you’re interested, drop me a line on here or on twitter @pmmikes

Now on to the juicy bit, the photos:

Re~Cycle at Glastonbury

This year Re~Cycle are setting up shop at Glastonbury Festival in the Green Futures Field.

They’ve got all sorts on offer, ranging from Re~Cycle branded merchandise to drop-in sessions with the Bike Guru and even cycle-powered mobile phone charging!

Drop by for a chat and find out what they’re all about.

Re~Cycle - Bikes to Africa

I mentioned it briefly in my recent On the Trail post, but I thought I’d share with you what i’ve been spending the majority of my time doing recently.

I finished uni for the summer about a month ago and realised very quickly that I was incredibly bored. I mean, I wasn’t exactly doing a whole bunch when I was there, but being back at home there was almost nothing to stimulate me. A few years ago, when I was one of the leaders of an Explorer Scout unit, I was lucky enough to get the chance to visit a local charity called Re~Cycle and help out a bit.

Re~Cycle are a charity based in Colchester, Essex which take donations of unwanted or unused bicycles, give them a health check and get them back up-to working order, then (believe it or not) ship them to partner organisations in Africa. These organisations in turn distribute the bikes to poorer communities to make their lives easier. Suddenly a 15 mile trek for water is a whole lot more manageable, and bicycles are invaluable to health workers. I can’t really do what they do justice here, so head on over to their website to find out more. So the idea of sending bicycles out at all is a pretty incredible feat on its own, but get this: they send a full container of 400 to 450 bicycles EVERY MONTH and have been doing so for the last 10 years or so. It’s run almost entirely by volunteers five days a week and the first time I set foot in their Colchester warehouse I knew it was an exciting place to be.

Some recipients in Africa with a bicycle donated by the Royal Mail

So, I turned up at the door one day in May and asked if there was any way I could help? As it happened, they needed someone with a little computer experience to manage the website amongst other things, that’s me right? The next day there I was in the office and the rest, as they say, is history (plenty more history to be made too, I hope!). It’s incredible seeing the work in action and very inspiring stuff to see people making a difference at a grassroots level.

Oh, and look out for the Re~Cycle banner at Glastonbury as they’ll have a stall selling merch, giving info and running a Dr. Bike service courtesy of the Bike Guru.

If you want to donate a bike to recycle then you can find details on the website here, although there’s no collection service, so it might be worth finding a place closer to home. Luckily there’s a place for that too: UK residents click here and foreigners click here. If you want to volunteer then check out the volunteer page on the site here or find out how to contact them here.