R Community Bikes Part 1.

The previous pictures are from my visit to Rochester Community Bikes , their vision is amazing and they seem to have a real handle on how to best help the people who need alternative means of transportation for one reason or another. The all Volunteer group there are extremely knowledgeable in bike mechanics as well as costumer service trying. The real highlight of the trip was that they have developed a system to not just give bikes away but make sure that each recipient is getting a bike that fits them and that works well enough that they can use it for a long time to come.

Please visit their site and perhaps help out in any way possible.

www.rcommunitybikes.net

Why this is relavent to my thesis is that when your dealing with dealing with people that are economically in trouble you need them to appreciate what they are getting, its one of the things that Paul Polak states in his essay in Design for the other 90%, that unless you a project work economically, the project will fail and that does nothing to help others. The way that R. Community Bikes makes profit is by selling some of the more valuable bikes on Craigslist, an Idea that I am about to email them is to set up a used bike storefront for those bikes in an area such as the south wedge where biking vintage is becoming very popular and you could gain more profit that way enabling them to help more people who can't afford bikes to receive them.