We Are NOT a Bike Shop: we don’t fix bikes for you. What we do is teach people to work on their own bikes. Many people already know how to work on bikes, that’s fine too, we’re here if you need us but we’ll leave you alone if you don’t… unless you’d just like to chat.

Membership of the Leeds Bike Co-op¶

This allows you to use the tools in the workshop and get assistance from the mechanics on hand during the opening hours. We are a volunteer organisation but to cover our costs and keep running we require funds. No-one will be denied reasonable help due to lack of funds. As of 2010 the costs are:
£2-£10 for drop in use
£15-25 for a year’s membership

We want to be affordable to everyone, but we do need some cash to pay for tools and rent of the space. You can become a member of the Pedallers’ Arms which gives you access to the space, tools, books and our support and guidance. You decide how much you think you can afford. Give what you think it was worth- how much time did you spend here, how many tools did you use, how much guidance did you get, how useful was it, and so on.

It is possible that the Mechanic on duty will accept work-trade instead of money but this is up to the Mechanic.

What costs do you need to cover? Things like replacement of lost or damaged tools; fixing up bikes (the parts and time that takes) to give to folks who can’t afford to pay (in exchange for their time as a volunteer) and other overheads.

What’s work-trade? If someone can’t afford to pay for use of tools/space, for membership, for parts etc, the Mechanic (at their discretion) can agree with that person a certain number of hours they can help us out for instead.

Volunteering¶

We are always after new volunteers at the Bike Co-op. Volunteering in the co-op means greeting people and explaining the Bike Co-op to them, pointing them to the right tools and offering help if you (and they) feel comfortable. We want to empower groups of people who might normally be not empowered to fix up their bike due to gender/ language/ financial issues.

Experience is helpful, but not essential, because anyone can participate in our learn-as-you-go approach. One of our on-duty Mechanics will help guide you through the process, and you may also be paired with a more experienced volunteer. The emphasis is on “anyone can fix their bike” we have the tools and we will be learning together. If you don’t have experience of fixing bikes we will be holding workshops to give you confidence, but you aren’t expected to fix up any problem, just to point people to the correct tools and books and read them together. In time we will all learn.

You are encouraged to come to meetings but we ask you to not block decisions at this stage.

Mechanics¶

These are the core volunteers/mechanics at the Leeds Bike Co-op. They are the people that have committed to taking responsibility for running shifts, organising volunteers, ordering parts, cleaning the shop, maintaining tools, e.t.c. To be a mechanic is a serious but rewarding commitment. You must have social skills to deal with bike people as well as technical knowledge of bikes. As a Mechanic, you get the benefit of having access to the shop outside of regular hours, not to mention meeting all kinds of ace bicycle-people. You also get have full decision making powers in meetings. You commit to help run one shift a month, come to more than one third of the monthly meetings and be on the mechanic email list.