Luke:
Yeah er, I-I guess erm... why did we start? why did we
start? it's from er, DIY kind of project in-in Holland for me, so it was about
kind of erm, self empowerment through learning so if you...could like start
fixing things or start having an understanding how things work so like bicycles
are a really basic...well, it's probably the most basic machine that's really
high efficiency so, a lot of people could ride it and they could also fix it
themselves erm, but, society that lives today doesn't really think of things,
like Gemma said earlier, it's not-it's like its-its seen as like one whole
thing so we'd find that people would have a puncture and er, they say the bikes
broken when actually its just like the inner tubes broken do you know what I
mean, I wouldn't break into components erm... yeah so err, what i did, I we-I
wanted to do a DIY kind of repair caff I guess that's what it's called nowadays
erm, and then yeah there was this big pitch and my friend Steph who id been
asking about doing a bike shop there, [and the girl was saying no n-no] and
there was this big pitch where it was like Dragons Den kind of erm, competition
and you could present, and I think they put Gemma with us really because we
were, kind of, rudderless like you know, we had this idea and I knew what I
wanted to do but I didn't want to work with-I was against all kind of, rules,
even though me and Gemma shared the same birthday [can hear Gemma laugh] it is like chalk and cheese really like, even
though we like, I've always respected her and like, she turns out to be right a
lot of the time but it's kind of like a good-a good balance where Gemma was
promotion and like, producing... er saying we needed to market things like
produce a website, produce poster, get a brand in, keep talking to the guild
and id always be like fuck them let just do our own fucking thing kind of, got
this nice little workshop, we'll just do what we want and ignore them and,
quite a naive attitude really erm.... and then it kind of-so then I had to re-sit
a year erm... well I didn't have to re sit a year that's another story in
itself but I ended up having-I was-I was-I need to do maths and electronics so I
had a lot of time and I just put-I was working down at Recycles a lot and I was
learning how to fix a bike myself and for me it was like the volunteering was
like a skill share so someone-it's not like he was asking them to come and
volunteer for you it's like they can come down and learn how to fix a bike in
return for like keeping the space running and that kind of then-other people
come along and want to learn how to fix a bike and it kind of, it should,
should be self-sustainable and like from peoples just, interest in bikes
erm...Yeah but there was also like the-the money aspect of the-theeeerer-the
like-the sustainability in the full sense of the word like it-like to be
sustainable it's like I could volunteer all my hours but then I'd get burnt out
like and how am I gonna live and like that's [kind of just decide] that Gemma
was more always like aware of erm, seeing the bigger picture, like, erm...yeah
so as it-so as it went on the bike project kind of grew more-we never really
advertise more- we didn't ever produce any leaflets I don't think actually,
maybe posters, I don't know... but kind of, it was always... people were coming
as we were capable of-well we weren't quite capable of like, catering for the
people that come but it was always fairly close balance, erm, yeah and it just
become a nice place where people would come down and you could-you could come
down if you hadn't ridden a bike before and learn how to build a bike for
yourself to ride away however many week you wanted to take like there was no
pressure, we didn't have to pay any bills, it was an unused space, it was an
old bar so it was like-well a-a old club so it was like quite a nice space
anyway, apart from a bit dark, you couldn't really see... yeah and people would
just come, they come down and hung out and fix their own bikes, and it was
nice, it was nice to see how people just f-their confidence grew and like be
able to take control of just like-for some people it's just a vehicle, for some
people it's a hobby, and for some people it's like...yeah, yeah, it's just that
erm...just a learning experience and yeah it's like self empowerment kind of
side of things...and I don't know what else to say now [Gentle laugh] so you have to prompt me. I don't know, where do we
go from there? where we are now? so we carried on there. our relationship with
the guild?
[Laugh]
I guess our
relationship with the guild because of like, my attitude towards them and Gemma's
attitude was er...up and down [Laugh]
I think if-if Gemma wasn't there we would've been thrown out at least twice,
possibly three times erm...and er, how it is now like there wer-wer-I mean we
were selling er, bike products in the shop as well so like to-to pay for the
project it like-we were sourcing inner
tubes, locks, erm, tires, don't think we ever did lights, break cables, did we
do break cables? no. pumps. so that like-the selling of that and that profits
from that was kind of erm, going to helping pay for new tools, stuff like
that...bikes were getting donated to us at fairly regular pace erm, it all
seemed to be going quite nice and then guilds get refurbished and...they wanted
us to carry on but they didn't really want us to carry on in the same way, the weren't
happy with it being-it was a student thing so it was only for students whereas
we did have a lot of crazy people come in, we also had a lot of like er, people
from all-all backgrounds coming in and it wasn't-it was-it was always, it's for
the community and the university should be for the community it's not for like-it's
the benefit of educating people is for everyone, you know, like its-that's why
it should be free and I'm going right off topic [Laugh +background laughter] I been going on a right rant! I'm
ranting okay I realised [Bigger laugh]
[Gemma suggests
something, can't transcribe]
We did it at the Brink yeah, yeah, yeah
Gemma:
...and that's a really interesting venue.
..
Luke:
See this is why it needed to be both of us because I don't
know [Laugh] So...I don't know it
that well
[Can't transcribe] I can't
really-I can't remember. how did we get the Brink? I don't know
Gemma:
Well not how jus-just say w-we did it
Luke:
Okay, so yeah, so part of what-why did it come about though?
why did we start doing bike doctors?
Gemma:
Because i knew the guy
Luke:
Yeah.
Gemma:
But it doesn't matter it's the fact that...
Luke:
Yeah but in my head it was always like [Laugh] I don't know why we did, because in my head it's like "it's
a DIY workshop so..."
Keith:
[Can't transcribe]
Luke:
No, no, but we wer-we f-for me it was always like kind of,
this is it, this is- this is the beautiful relationship between me and Gemma it's
like-for me it's like we're doing too much already and Gemma was like "we
need to do more", and we did more, every time we did managed to, somehow,
do more but er... yes it-d-d-Gemma got contact with the Brink cafe which is the
er, first dry bar in the country right? so it's for like recovering alcoholics
or drug abusers and it's kind of, to give them a responsibility er, well not
responsibility, to make them feel wanted in society again, i guess like by
giving them responsibilities so like giving them shifts behind the bar or they'll
be in cooking, or whether they're just waiting and we'd go down there once a
month erm, on a Sunday and just do a free bike fixing session erm, the aim was
always to help fix their bikes but, it's quite hard to let just someone just do
it and you just-j-j-I don't know, wed-t-wed tend to kind of, yeah, do it for
them if they didn't want to but a lot-like the-er-the-some people would wanna
fix their own bikes and they would...erm...yeah I'm just rambling again anyway
[Laughter] this is why I shouldn't
talk [Laugh]
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