Since it’s dark outside at 5:30 now, we moved our Saturday Hickory St shop hours to 3-5PM so we can use available daylight.

We still have parts organization work to do, so come on out and volunteer if you’d like to sort some of our recent donations.  And as always, we’re happy to assist with repairs!

1st place – Evelin Martinez – 5th grade
2nd place – Elizabeth Landeros-5th grade
3rd place – Busra Can- 4th grade

On October 29, 2009, we held an awards ceremony at Tomas Rivera Elementary for the three winners of the Bikes-To-Kids contest.  The winning art entries are really, really, really good, and I’m not just saying that because the art is bike themed.  These kids are truly talented, and the judges were blown away by the creativity and detail in the winning works.  The students worked on these art projects for the month of October, and simultaneously, Querencia volunteers repaired about seven bicycles from which the winners chose.  Denton Police donated new helmets, Sonic donated coupons, and the Hydrant Cafe donated coupons.

Here are the winning entries which will be on display at Emily Fowler Library through November:

1st place - Evelin Martinez

2nd place - Elizabeth Landeros

3rd place - Busra Can

You can see all of the photos at the qcbs.org Flickr account, and be sure to zoom in and appreciate the detail of these works.  The 2nd place entry even has the “Brooks” logo on the leather saddle!  The other entries in the top 10 were also super good and worth looking at, so feel free to look at all the entries.

Here are more photos from Bikes To Kids:

Querencia volunteers repairing kids' bikes

Howard Draper addressing the Art Club students

Lt Tom Woods awarding helmets courtesy of Denton PD

Kati Trice awards the first place medal to Evelin Martinez

Nic Bagherpour adjusts saddle height

happy sisters with a nice mongoose BMX bike

victory laps!

We are so giddy about Bikes-To-Kids that we snuck out these spy pics showing some of the art in progress.  The Art teacher says these kids are VERY excited.

is that a flying saucer?!

idyllic country ride

Note the Brooks B67 saddle detail!

biking in Hollywood

Ah, oui.

there is no destination too far, right?

We’re excited to announce our first Bikes-To-Kids project with DISD! We’re restoring donated bicycles to give to the three winners of an Art & Essay contest. The after school art club from Tomas Rivera is participating, and bikes will be awarded to the winners at 2:30PM on Thursday, October 29. The ceremony will take place outside Tomas Rivera Elementary near the school marquee, and public attendance is encouraged. Show these kids how important it is to learn about cycling at an early age!  Our judges include a cycling police officer, a cycling librarian, and a cycling professional musician, all from Denton.  The winning entries will be displayed at Emily Fowler Library throughout November.

Querencia recently brought 300 lbs of discarded bike metal to a Denton metal recycling business, Fulton’s.  Pictured is the receipt and $14 in cash.  Unfortunately, we got the steel price of $.04 per pound instead of the aluminum price of $.40 per pound.  Next time, we’ll have to more thoroughly strip the aluminum frames off all fasteners and headsets, but hey, this is a nice start!

It’s a good feeling to clear out a pile of junk metal and know that it’s going back into the supply stream.  Who knows, maybe some of it will be reincarnated as your next new bike.

We won’t be open on Hickory St this weekend, but we will be providing free bicycle valet at the Sam Bass Bicycle Challenge race this weekend.

Hey Soulful Cyclers,

Let’s join together for another community bike ride and come check out the educational repair shop afterwards!

DixieDev has planned this route – a nice windy tour through SOUTHSIDE. It’ll be about 8 miles.
Meet @ Emily Fowler at 1:30, Leaves at 2pm. Arrive at shop at 4pm.

Shop 4pm – 6pm.
Please, come check it out and participate. The theme for this Saturday is STRIPPING. That’s right, we got a pile of bikes that need to be stripped of all the useful parts so the frames can be sold for scrap metal monies. It will help free up valuable space for us to get more organized and help fund our activities!
And as always, we’ll be teaching each other how to repair and keep them two wheels on the road.

If you want to learn, come.
If you want to teach, come.
Help proliferate this vital knowledge!

Public shop hours are moving to Saturday 4-6PM until further notice.

This applies to our residential backyard shop on Hickory St just off the bike lane.  Now the community rides can dovetail with shop sessions, which can help when bicycle problems are discovered during a community ride.  We do anticipate having expanded shop hours once we obtain a non-residential shop space.  If you have any leads on potential permanent shop space, please email info@qcbs.org as we’d love to have your input.

As always, when in doubt, check back at the QCBS Repair Shop page to find out when shop hours occur, as they are subject to change.