Bike Kitchen/Oven

http://www.bikekitchen.org/

The Bike Kitchen is a cooperative, do-it-yourself bike repair shop. We provide all the tools and parts you need to fix or build a bicycle. Our staff of volunteer mechanics is available to give advice and answer questions.

Instead of charging a fee for services, the Bike Kitchen charges membership dues: either $5 a day, or $40 a year. Purchasing a membership gives you access to all the tools and parts in our inventory. If you're short on cash, you can earn a membership or parts by volunteering in the shop for a certain number of hours.

We have this in San Francisco where I'm from. Anything similar here in London? Looking for a place where I can put together a bike/do tune-ups for free/real cheap, with access to loads of tools.

Thanks
Justin

Nice idea - I can offer informal access to tools/advice and a limited but ever changing parts bin in return for beer :)
No room to store work in progress unfortunately - got plenty of my own to fall over.
p.s. can't guarantee the advice is worth having, accurate, useful, or won't cause death when you leave on said bike ;-)

^it's true.

that sounds like a really good idea to start up, but the venue might be a problem in London

would Herne Hill be up for something like this - they've got those big metal containers for storage space, and an existing workshop i believe...

search for open toolbox

do you reckon he could get government help with this? there's lots of money being put into cycling, boris rides a bike, drop him a line..

there's a thing like that run by squatters on crampton street in elephant. totally free. free parts, lots of decent tools and decent folks.

http://www.56a.org.uk/bikeshop.html

also another one somewhere in hackney (run by the council i think) where they teach bike maintenance etc.

think there's been a thread on this from ages ago i cant be arsed to search though.

bike shops would love this to spread all over London :O

There is a place like this in Brighton...

No good to you but there is a place in Edinburgh that does all the things you need.

http://www.thebikestation.org.uk/

It's bloody good, would be bloody good to have something on that scale in London, you can see so many folks cycling round Edinburgh on bikes from the Bikestation

When starting my workshop i considered something like this... but finding somewhere relatively central is pretty damn impossible. massive over heads for a shop front, and lock ups are hard to come by.

I think when the bike station started it was set up under the railway arches by Waverly station. I think its something that has to be funded by central government, initially at first anyway. Maybe something for LCC to look into/do.

http://www.bikekitchen.org/

We have this in San Francisco where I'm from. Anything similar here in London? Looking for a place where I can put together a bike/do tune-ups for free/real cheap, with access to loads of tools.

I'm so happy that place still exists. I used to volunteer there for a while back when I lived there, maybe 5 years ago. Its a great place thats genuinely open to everyone, from college kids to homeless guys. Amazing vibe. I learnt so much stuff there too. And they still do the best events. Did you do the Tour de Cupcake? genius...

Wow, high interest in something like this. Cool. Would be cool if this thread sparked the creation of a non-profit bike workshop...

Retro_di_corsa... may take you up on your offer at some point, though I am quite clumsy and am worried about sustaining injury falling over your projects...

Cheers!

I am from Spain and I built two fixed gears and a 10 speed road bike in the Bicyclekitchen in los angeles. *http://www.bicyclekitchen.com/ *awesome place. Can't believe there is nothing like this in London. I don't think can't be that difficult to start a similar project here.

Most of the bike shops at the moment are non profit :P

a similar project exists in Brighton.

Thread linkage:

https://www.lfgss.com/thread81000.html