Our Open Shop hours (Wed/Thurs 6-8pm and Saturday noon-4pm) will continue at least until the snow flies, so drop in anytime to see the Shop, lend a hand, or learn a bit about fixing up your own bike. If you haven’t been in for a while, I think you’ll be pleasantly
surprised at all the various things we have going on at the Shop. For instance, did you know that you can reserve our upstairs conference room for your local club/meeting/get-together? There’s room for 12, it’s free of charge, and we have available computers and internet access. It’s just one more way we’re working to be a neighborhood resource.

Winter bike classes, organized through Metro Community College, start the first week of December, and you can sign up now through MCC’s website or by calling them on the phone (402-457-5231). Check out the CBPO website for a list of all the classes we’re offering on our Classes page.

Omaha B-cycle continues to enjoy a lot of success in the Aksarben Village/UNO area, making bikes available to the public for recreation and transportation. We’re working to expand the system downtown and to some connecting locations between! If that’s something you’d like to see happen, let us know!

We have a few upcoming events to keep your eye out for: an art mural dedication at the Shop in November, and then our Golden Spokes annual volunteer appreciation night, either in late November or early December. Check our website and Facebook page for details. We would love to see you at one or both of these events!

Finally, please remember we are a small non-profit that relies entirely on community support to be able to do what we do. If you’d like to support us, we’re always looking for specific items and charitable donations. You can find out more information on our website on our Donate page or feel free to give us a call.

Thanks and I hope you have a great October!

Matt Martin
Executive Director
Community Bike Project Omaha

We’ve spent a lot of time cleaning up and organizing our shop at 525 North 33rd Street, getting ready for the busy season with the tremendous help of our terrific volunteers, old and new. Bike parts are sorted, piles are put away, lights have been added, some new energy-efficient windows have been installed, and a set of refurbished bikes are ready to get out the door. On top of all that, our generous landlords have allowed us to expand our operations to include half of the 2nd floor of the building, which we are quickly converting into a classroom/conference room and even an office. One of the things we’ll use the upstairs for is to hold adult classes on bike safety and urban riding—which we’re organizing through Metropolitan Community College, and in cooperation with Omaha Bikes. There’ll be more details soon: check out the next MCC mailer when you get it! We’re also continuing our bike repair and mechanics classes at the shop, held every other Tuesday, where you can learn everything from changing a flat tire to rebuilding a bottom bracket. Check out the CBPO website for details.

Outside the shop, we’ve started teaching kids about bike safety, too, in a pilot project at Western Hills magnet school, in cooperation with Omaha Bikes. We’ve got 10 students from grades 4-6, and after 2 classes, I can say they seem to be enjoying it! We hope to expand this program in the future, so that more kids can learn about bike safety—whether they can come to classes at our shop or we go to them in the schools. And of course, we’ll make sure that they all have access to bikes and helmets, too.

Lots more is in the works, too, but for now, I’ll just finish by inviting you to our Spring Open House, Sunday, April 17th, from 11am-3pm. We hope you’ll stop by, see what we’ve been doing with our shop, check out our fancy upstairs expansion, enjoy some refreshments, and hopefully a beautiful spring day, too!

Matt Martin
Executive Director
Community Bicycle Project

At the end of 2010, CBPO worked with the Omaha City Planning Department to coordinate getting bicycles to kids from families in need. A group of volunteers fixed up 8 bikes to donate and helped distribute them to the families. We’ve already seen some pictures of the kids with bikes and there’s nothing better than to see the smiles on their faces.

Also, as part of CBPO’s effort to help our local colleges and universities become more bike-friendly, we have prepared 15 adult bikes for use in Metro Community College’s new “yellow bike” program, set to start this spring at their north Omaha campus. In this “yellow bike” program, bicycles are distributed around the campus and left unlocked for people to use, with the understanding that when they’re done, they in turn will leave the bikes for others to use. We hope this will encourage bicycle use in north Omaha and raise the visibility of bicycling on the MCC campus. As an added bonus, MCC is having their auto body students paint the bicycle frames, which will give them additional practice honing their skills. As we have stripped the bikes of components to help with the painting, we’re hoping that MCC will be able to send some people to the shop to help reassemble the bikes, so that they also gain some important bike repair skills.

Our mechanics classes are going well, with a new class offered every other week on Tuesday nights. The next class will be on February 1st and will cover “Trail Shooting.” It’s good to know how to fix all those different things you want to work on when you’re at home and you can leisurely work on your bike, but what about when you’re out on the road and disaster strikes? We’ll teach you the tricks to get out of most situations and keep you rolling down the trail. This class will cover everything from basic things, like fixing a flat tire, to fancier fixes, like what to do if you break a spoke during your ride. As always, classes are 6-8pm, and we ask for a $10 donation so we can support the classes. RSVP to: info@communitybikeproject.org.

Finally, our Open Shop hours continue on Saturdays noon- 4pm, so stop in if your bike needs a little TLC, if you’re looking for a new bike for 2011, or if you want to help out or just hang out. We’re already looking a little ahead to April, when we’ll resume our regular Open Shop hours. As always, we’re always looking for volunteers, so if you have a little time and want to help us out, just let us know! In the coming months, look for more announcements from CBPO. We’ve got some exciting things percolating that we’re not quite ready to unveil but hope to soon. Until then, stay warm and ride safely!

Matt Martin, Executive Director

For $10/class, you will receive expert instruction in a 2-hour class by bike mechanics from bike stores all over Omaha. If you want to take all 12 classes, we’ll cut you a break and only charge $100 for all 12.

Classes start on Tuesday, October 12 and will continue every other Tuesday evening.

Please RSVP to Matt Martin: matt@communitybikeproject.org. If you have any questions, email or call Matt at 402-957-2454.

Here’s a schedule of upcoming classes:

2010

10/10 Pedals, Saddles, Seatposts, Handlebars, and Stems

10/26 Brakes

11/9 Derailleurs

11/23 Chains & Chainwheels

12/7 Hubs and Quick-Releases

12/21 TBD

2011

1/4 Headsets

1/18 Cranks, Bottom Brackets

2/15 Wheelbuilding

3/1 Wheels—Truing & Dishing

3/15 Frames

TBD: Tires & Tubes

Read the news here

Activate Omaha and RDG Planning & Design are hosting a workshop on LAB’s Bicycle Friendly Business program on Wednesday June 9 from 5:30-6:30pm. A brief presentation of the program and Q&A session will be held at the offices of RDG, 900 Farnam (north entrance). Contact Stuart at sshell@rdgusa.com for more information

Led by Randy Smith, volunteers have tuned and shined the donated bicycles over the last two months. The bikes are in wonderful condition to provide tons of joy for their next riders. This outreach project is one example of how Community Bike Project, through volunteer initiative and compassion, is re-purposing used bikes to improve the community.

The event will include a bike rodeo organized by police officers, a bike safety check, and helmet-fitting for the 200 free helmets that will be distributed. Long-time CBPO supporter Ron Mortensen has also refurbished 20 bikes for this event. Duane Miller was key to coordinating our involvement with this outreach work.

Read the story from the Omaha World Herald. Event details are at the OPD website.

Matt Martin

Community Bike Project Omaha is pleased to announce Matt Martin as our first Executive Director. As a group of committed volunteers, we have been working towards this day since our first season in 2007. Matt’s passion for cycling and experience in advocacy will add scale to the volunteer-based work of Community Bike Project in the community. He will lead a new initiative to create multiple cyclist support centers at area college campuses. These centers promise to provide support for students, faculty, and staff who commute by bike. The centers may also operate a bicycle library program for students who seek temporary use of a bike. The project is made possible through a grant managed by Live Well Omaha and Douglas County Health Department. In addition to establishing cyclist support centers, Matt will further the organization’s vision of providing access to bicycle transportation to every member of our community. By refining existing programs and determining where additional programs are needed, Matt will amplify the positive impact of Community Bike Project in the Omaha area. Please join us in welcoming Matt.

The City of Omaha is sponsoring a city-wide cleanup on Saturdays, beginning April 17th and lasting for six weeks.  Garages all over town are being cleaned out; hundreds of bikes are being thrown away.

In keeping with our mission to REUSE and ReCYCLE, we will be stationed at the Crossroads Mall parking lot on each of these Saturdays to collect donated bikes.

We need volunteers to: accept bike donations, sell T-Shirts, provide donation receipts, explain the CBSO mission, sort the bike donations, remove parts and prepare bikes for hauling, and wave when people honk. We will use the bikes in our community education and outreach programs to promote stronger communities through sustainable transportation and healthy exercise.

We will be accepting bike donations in the Crossroads Mall parking lot from 9AM to Noon on the following Saturdays:
April 17
April 24
May 1
May 8
May 15
May 22

Please PICK ONE OR MORE of these days, and email omahabike@gmail.com. with the days you can help.  This is the biggest project we have initiated and we NEED YOUR HELP to make it successful !  Thank you !