Visit to the Baltimore Bike Experience

   Mai and I traveled to downtown Baltimore today to visit the Baltimore Bike Experience (https://www.facebook.com/baltimorebikeexperience).

   The B'More Bike Experience occupies a large storage area in Digital Harbor High School (http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/416). I was struck by the number of bicycles and the well organized piles of bike parts that they had. MICA grad Andy Dahl (MFA 2014) co-directs the program with  the help of Nima Shahidi as co director/facilitator and three teachers from Digital Harbor. As Andy noted, "Nothing is wasted." They fix up bikes and sell them, or use the frames to build bike racks, or bring broken parts to scrap metal dealers. Students who have put in enough hours also receive a repaired bike for free. One of their students has been offered a job as a bike mechanic at the Race Pace bike shop a few block down Key Highway from the school. 

   Andy and Nima are inspiring to watch - Andy circles everyone up to summarize what they learned the previous week and what they plan to do this afternoon. Nima challenges everyone to a visual/mechanical puzzle. Pointing to a bicycle hanging from a bicycle repair stand, Nima asks the students, "This frame was donated to us after the owner claimed it was defective and was given a new one by the manufacturer. Can anyone see what is wrong with it?" After a few seconds, a student notes that the "drop out" is broken. Nima turns to the group: "Everybody understand what a drop out is? Right, that piece broke off - supposedly when the owner tried to place the bike in his car - but we can harvest a lot of good parts from the this frame and make it into a bike rack." Nima and Andy then list the number of tasks that need to be done, and they let students choose. Mai and I sort through a box of chains, gears, and cranks to see which can be salvaged and stored in the parts bins. If it hadn't been raining outside, we would have taken some of the bikes out for a ride. I will look forward to another visit when the weather is clear.

   The program operates from 3pm to 6pm every Wednesday. Andy noted that if he had more funding, he would expand the program to multiple afternoons. I would like to see this happen; when I was in graduate school in Dr. Gil Noam's course on after school programs (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2002), it was estimated that only 10% of the expressed need for after school programming was being met. Funding and space are major obstacles. For more information on after school education, please visit the Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR) at http://www.pearweb.org.