On Wednesdays we’re working on training up bike mechanics, sorting out the new workshop, stripping and fixing up bikes.

On Saturdays from 11am to 5pm, we’re open  to the public and you can drop into the workshop and have access to the tools and advice you need to keep you bike running sweet.

If you don’t want to work on your own bike then you can leave it with us to get a full service.

Please note, as we only stock 2nd hand spares, some jobs we might not be able to complete and will give you advice on what parts you need to buy.

But we’re pleased to announce that REWORKS is now up-and-running and it’s full steam ahead.  We’re starting yet another series of bike workshops with homeless and vulnerably housed people this week, they’ll be news of a community bike workshop scheme  soon and we’ve started on our next cargo-bike project.

Come along this Saturday 10th July from 5pm to check out the new workshop and find out about all the various projects going on in the space.

http://www.reworkscambridge.org

Our new home... Another blank canvas to play with.

The first thing you do when you get a warehouse... Replace the rear suspension on your van.

The second thing you do... Anything big before the workshop fills up with tat.

Doesn't take long before it's looking lived in.

Plenty of space to fill though.

First electrics starting to go in.

And the metal pile starts to build, as well as our collection of shopping trolleys.

Look! We can fit a truck in our workshop!

All the contents of Workshop54 moved in and we're ready for welding!

And we’re going to start welding these cargo-bikes, so if you’re interested in one, get in touch now.

We’re looking for more ‘bike conversions’ such as this, to compliment our custom bike trailers… Our new strap line… “Custom work bikes from scrap”.

Bonus! Some interesting hi-tech / low-tech bike madness…

Over the course of two weeks we covered all aspects of bike building, maintenance and some of the “in’s and out’s” of running a small bike workshop.

Also, check out ‘The Biker Bar‘, another technique for bike powered events.

We were welcomed with open arms into The Bike Bloc, but that might have been because we had a van full of tools, angle grinders and welders… We managed to drive right up into the yard so spent the week living in the middle of a bike graveyard, which has always been a dream. It didn’t take us long before we got stuck into the business at hand, welding up lots of ‘Double Double Trouble’ bikes, a design that the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination had come up with prior to Copenhagen in Bristol. Basically two tall bikes with a platform inbetween, which turns them into some kind of Ben Hur chariot.

Unfortunately we were under constant police surveillance and it felt like only a matter of time before The Bike Bloc was raided. This happened three days into the welding and unfortunately they confiscated two of the ‘Double Double Troubles’ which they labelled   ’War Bikes’. A much snappier name in our opinion. Here’s a video of the raid, if you’re interested.

Then came the ‘day of action’ and we’d been having so much fun working with the bike bloc that we didn’t have much of a clue what to get up to on the day. So after a brief look at huge police people beating small people with sticks, we decided to head to the bar and discuss angle iron and gas-less welding instead.

The Candy Factory in Copenhagen, home to The Bike Bloc for the duration of the COP15.

Welcome to The Bike Bloc.

Sssssssssshhh... The police will never know we're here...

A 'Double Double Trouble' in all it's glory.

A 'War Bike' being confiscated by the Danish police, to start their own jousting team.

This video of a peddle powered Buick made us let out a little bit of wee.

There’s ice on the roads and it’s cold out, not the best cycling weather… So why not dream of what you might get up to in the sunny days of the summer to come.

We met a few crazy bike types from Paris during our recent trip to Copenhagen and they got all excited about the first Universal Critical Mass they’re hosting in Paris this Summer. They turned out to be a top bunch of people and Trailer Trash will certainly be there. I see a Cambridge to Paris bike trip on the horizon…

From their website:
http://velorutionuniverselle.org

Bienvenue ! Welcome ! Benvenuto ! Bienvenidos ! Willkommen !

On the year 2010, Parisians will treat themselves with a big breath of fresh air and happiness : Paris will host its first Universal Critical Mass!

A critical mass celebrates all aspects of cycling culture. We’ll happily and joyfully take on the roads for the space of a week end. This will [also] be an occasion to denounce a system entirely based on the use of motor vehicles.

Riding a bicycle is not only an enjoyable activity : it also offers an alternative to our supersonic life-styles and to numerous issues caused by motor vehicles.

During this four-days’ party, cyclists from the entire world will meet to celebrate their joy of living on a bicycle and their pleasure to circulate freely.

Let’s all meet on July 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 2010 for a fantastic event that will be remembered in Paris.

In a year we’ve built about four trailers, a couple of handcarts, a wind turbine, a two-person-trike, several wack bikes, some rocket stoves, a bike powered sound system and ran a series of ‘build your own bike‘ workshops for homeless types. And it was all research.

Reflecting back on the year, our aims seem to be moving more towards ‘intelligent use of locally sourced scrap materials to help minimise our environmental impact’… And ‘bikes are great’ of course.

Our birthday promise to ourselves is to get a bit more organised about making use of all the people who’ve said they’d love to help out down the workshop. Some kind of structure to volunteering on the various projects we’re running. We’re also interested in applying permaculture principles and techniques into how we run our ‘business’.

Although things have been a little quiet on the blog of late, that’s mainly due to a dodgy digital camera. A good chunk of time was spent on a massive post Climate Camp clean-up and stock-take.  Otherwise, we’ve been having fun with the following…

• Started a new commission for a thin but useful bike trailer, designed around a narrow passage to a back garden in Catherine Street.
• We’ve been working on the bike generators and putting a plan together for a top class ‘bike powered event / shouting machine’.
• We’ve got a ‘Cambridge Green Tech’ group up and running, who meet every week at Workshop54 to work on practical sustainable technology, get in touch if you’re interested.
• We’ve been running fairly regular, but adhoc, ‘Bring Your Own Bike Sessions‘, best way to hear about them is to either join our mailing list or our Facebook group.

A few pictures, as evidence of labour:

The 'Bat Bike'... Next generation power generation bike machine.

Design for our latest trailer commission.

Materials for the trailer... Some would call it 'scrap'.

The infamous Workshop54 "Wheel Pile" is no more.

A years worth of metal collecting. Nearly all of our scrap metal came from businesses based in the same building or the area close to Workshop54.

We love this: Montana Transit Authority

ATTENTION ALL BIKE HACKERS
JOIN THE BIKE BLOC
COPENHAGEN DEC 2009

The basic bike generator design involves attaching a skate board wheel to a 250W 24V electric scooter motor, then attaching the motor to a Turbo Trainer, so when a bike is placed in the trainer, the back wheel turns the skate board wheel, which then spins the motor to produce some lovely DC electricity.

In the past we’ve had problems attaching the skate wheels to the motor, but this time around we were quite successful by wedging the wheel onto the motor axle and then using Aralidite between the wheel and axle. We bought motors with the ‘belt drive’ axle on them, which gives a lot more purchase for the glue and also seems to fit the skate wheels quite nicely.

The motor is wired to a Schottky diode (so the electricity can only flow from the motor to the battery and not the other way around) which we salvaged from old computer PSUs. Then an Ammeter to measure the Amps coming out of the motor and finally a 10A blade fuse.

Each generator is then wired into the ‘main rail’, which has the following all wired in parallel…

• 1 Farad Power Capacitor – Helps even out the voltage and means that it’s possible to run the kit with a lead acid battery if required.
• Lead Acid Battery – Works as voltage regulator and allows the music to continue even if everyone gives up on cycling for a while.
• 12V + USB charger – Allows 12V and USB devices to be charged directly from the bikes.
• Invertor – Converts 12V DC to 240V AC electricity, to allow ‘normal’ plugs and kit to be powered from the bike system.

After we got the basic generators and kit working we decided to build a hand cart to lug everything around at the Climate Camp and to hold some rather silly large speakers for our bike powered sound system.

Hand cart chassis, made from scrap table iron and a couple of front wheels.

The hand cart with silly speakers and 'power box' attached.

One of the bike generator stands attached to the 'power box'.

And a bike attached to a generator.

Inside the 'power box'.

Some pretty basic instructions for use.

Close up of the guts... Power capacitor, main rail, battery switch and 12V + USB charger at the top.

We used a salvaged UPS system as our invertor.

Close up of the motor / generator. Quite a bit of wear on the skate wheel.

A rather bad photograph of the back of the generator, showing the wiring to the diode, ammeter and fuse.

We’re looking into loosing the Turbo Trainers from the setup, instead attaching the motor / generator directly to the bikes. So that you can charge batteries on the move and to make the kit more mobile and quicker to setup. The Turbo Trainers are quite hard and expensive to get hold of and pretty awkward to carry around.

We’re also looking for events to power by bike, so if you’re hosting an event in a field or on the move and need some power, please do get in touch. Each bike can knock out anything between 50 and 100 Watts of power and we currently have two generators.

We’d also like to work on some D.I.Y. electric assisted vehicles, but maybe not quite as polished as the eROCKIT.