[Closed] New bike cafe and workshop in Bristol - crowd funding content

The bike-shop-cafe combination has been working in Oxford for a while, I think they were the first cafe in Oxford to offer a flat white 🙂
http://zappisbikecafe.com/

The old Oxford Cycle Workshop co-op used to do a lot of community work (including working with schools, the homeless, teaching bike maintenance), partly funded by grants. Sadly they went under but have now reincarnated as the Broken Spoke Bike Coop.

I've met the Oxford lot a few times - Dan, Rebecca, Simon et al - and was well impressed by what they were doing, as well as how much fun they were having along the way.

In the North this bunch would be labeled as beggars.Down south of course there innovaters providing a public service.What a joke.

In the north it wouldn't happen because you're too lazy.

Other than the northern monkey's raging jealousy, why all the negativity?
I won't benefit from this endeavour as I live in the South, but wish them all the best.

Now we have innovative cycling projects on the mean streets of Oxford.Good to see sknob back with his high level sociological analysis.If a black or working class person ever shows up at this hipster joint id be amazed.Its just the usual charity obsessed private school slackers looking for an easy life.With a bit of patronising'helping the poor',thrown in.It's all very big society and coalition bullshit to my eyes.

.If a black or working class person ever shows up at this hipster joint id be amazed.

You've never been to Bristol have you?

[url= http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=do%20not%20feed%20the%20troll ]DNFTT.[/url]

Edit: actually, keep feeding, it means more people will see this thread, have a good cackle and then hopefully put their hands in their pockets.

Now we have innovative cycling projects on the mean streets of Oxford.Good to see sknob back with his high level sociological analysis.If a black or working class person ever shows up at this hipster joint id be amazed.Its just the usual charity obsessed private school slackers looking for an easy life.With a bit of patronising'helping the poor',thrown in.It's all very big society and coalition bullshit to my eyes.

Ahh, it's starting to become clear.

A little advice; do you know what society/the world/life owes you?

NOTHING.

If you want something like this in your area then get up off your lazy posterior and do it yourself.

Whinging like a baby on the internet will not get you anywhere, and I'd leave out the politics until you're old enough to vote. 😉

And here I sit waiting for Mr Monkey's response. It's like Kasparov v Karpov.

Likewise.
I'll admit I was interested to read his casually racist view as it isn't something I've come across in my area, or indeed the last decade for that matter.

What makes you think that you do more for people than I do?

Nothing - but your determination to denigrate some people (you may have never met) for trying something that is local, ethical, laudable and not unreasonable gives a certain impression.

It's all very big society and coalition bullshit to my eyes.

That'll be because you are blinkered by the mahoosive chips you have on each shoulder. For a Southerner you gob off about being Northern an awful lot.

I think folks are missing the core essential competitive advantage this place will have....

The workshop bit will be open throughout, same as the cafe bit. That's the genius - it'll be open outside office hours. So many people can't get out of work from the 9-5 to sort out bike repairs/servicing etc. or even just for a puncture repair. No other shop in Bristol, bar Evans, is available for this. Evans is a big retail premises that just happens to have a workshop attached - anyone in on a weekend or evening will be amazed and the number of people wanting to just fix a puncture or 'have a look at my brakes'. This is the gap in the market. Bike shops are so busy with repairs/servicing in Bristol that I can't think of anywhere that you don't have to book your bike in for, even for the smallest of jobs. I do hope the intention with this place is that if someone comes in and all they need is new brake blocks and cable adjustment, they can just sit down with a coffee/tea and it'll be done in 10 minutes.

The next bonus is showing cycling events on a big screen. For those of use who don't want to get a Sky subscription just for Eurosport, or watch it online for that matter, it will be bloody great for races like the one day classics which get no terrestrial coverage whatsoever. Paris-Roubaix with a load of mates with frites and beer? Hell yes!

Cafes might be too numerous to mention, but with this, the cafe is just the glue that holds the rest together.

To be fair, Mud Dock do show some of the big classic races. It's just not the first place that springs to mind when I think about watching a bike race.

Nice coverage from road.cc:

http://road.cc/content/news/66626-crowdfunding-sought-bristol-community-bike-cafe

I haven't exactly been overjoyed by the current government, but if I ever doubt my decision to vote Conservative I have only to read the deranged ramblings of an oxygen thief like monkeycmonkeydo.

but your determination to denigrate some people (you may have never met) for trying something that is local, ethical, laudable and not unreasonable gives a certain impression.

"To be fair, Mud Dock do show some of the big classic races. It's just not the first place that springs to mind when I think about watching a bike race."

Yeah, with the volume down/off so as not to disturb the food customers. I hate that place.

"To be fair, Mud Dock do show some of the big classic races. It's just not the first place that springs to mind when I think about watching a bike race."

Yeah, with the volume down/off so as not to disturb the food customers. I hate that place.

LOL.

Kinda says it all really. All style and no substance. Remember the uproar when they tried to vote it one of the best bike shops in the UK a few years ago and everyone was up in arms because as a shop they are so up themselves.

I've never actually been to watch one there, so I wouldn't know.

I've never found the shop to be particularly "up themselves" - lots of sound people have worked there and quite a few have gone on to bigger and better things in the bike industry. They know their customer base and presumably if the cyclists were driving away the diners, they would be losing money. It's a bit like expecting a posh restaurant to be showing the football.

I can't stand the place.

BH a toryboy who would have thunk it.For you silly southerners sake I will point out M,boro has had a cycle centre for the last decade.This of course was under a Labour Govt and properly financed.Sknob saying I was making a racist comment shows he can't even read.As for the Geordie Lord Haw Haw Totall its time he was cut down to size!You would think the displaced Geordie post industrial nomads would want to support the northeast.I think its time we split STW into a North/South sections.I no longer wish to be exposed to the ramblings of a bunch of forlock tugging,tory voting,poor baiting brainwashed halfwits.Goodnight Alf Garnets ,sleep tight.

I don't mind a rant if it's eloquent and nicely written, but that's just drivel.

Well this is gold!
If by "properly financed" you mean unprecedented public borrowing and spending with no hope of return, then yes, Labour were very good at "proper financing".
It's the greatest reason as to why we are over £1 trillion in debt.
That and the ****less dole scroungers.

What do you do for a living monkey?
I'm going to hazard a guess at semi-professional Jeremy Kyle viewer, am I close?

You know that feeling when you get back from holiday and the cat's left a big pile of sick on the stairs? That.

Anyway, some good news. They're already over 50% of the way there!

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/investment/roll-for-the-soul-a-community-bike-cafe-for-bristol-1228

That'll be more free manbags allround then.

Incredible. Someone puts a lot of work, and presumably money, into something that can only benefit people and cycling as a whole and all some people can do is flap their unconteolled gobs and spout such crap it beggars belief. I truly hope that monkeythingy one day tries to do something positive rather than belittling others efforts. But I doubt it. What a tool.

Mr A, I hope it all gets off the ground well and I shall make sure I visit next time I'm down your way. 🙂

Trying to be helpful; Coffee for the shop must be purchased from two day coffee roasters on st michaels hill. Great little Indy business, nice people and amazing coffee!

Monkey is back!
That must have been one hell of a Jeremy Kyle-athon to keep him away that long.
I might start a book on how many Rustlers microwave burgers it took him to see it through.

Great to see it doing well so far, but why the emphasis on coffee? I thought cyclists were all tea and Eccles cakes?

Sknob has a point.It al be all Earl Grey and no builders tea.

Builder's tea is for the working man; you never did answer my question about your employment, can I assume I got it right?

Why don't you take inspiration from your moniker; see all those people with jobs?
Get one you ****wit.

Have to say, i dont really think Bristol is "crying out for something like this" at all. I hope it works out for you and it is a success but I just dont get the business model. If you need cheap/free servicing you are unlikely to also spend £5 on a latte and a piece of organic, homemade flapjack from a cafe whilst you wait, or if you can, then you should be charging them £5 for the servicing and make them forego the cake.....

If I just go for the cake and coffee and the atmosphere, there are good cafes that already do it in Bristol, you dont need to be in a cycle shop/environment to talk about cycles.

Offering a venue to watch cycle races in a cafe environemnt is also somewhat flawed. Sure, its nice to watch a spring classic on a big screen with your mates but there are only half a dozen a year that take place at the weekend and only another half dozen or so Grand Tour stages at the weekend most people could make, given we are all at work for the rest. Maybe I'm wrong and loads of people would leave work early to catch the end of a mountain stage but who will be your customers throughout the rest of the day, month, year and why would they go to your cafe and not Boston Tea Party, Starbucks, etc etc. Given we all moan about clique-y cycle shops, how will this be any different?.

There are already good cafes in Bristol that sell aforementioned organic, homemade cake and charge £3 for a slice (when in reality, if i head for a cafe after a ride all I want is pre-packaged gloop made from sugar and oats for £1) and there are also bike shops I trust with my bike (winter hack or sunday best is irrelevant) whom I am happy to pay an appropriate fee, sorry but I dont need the two combined.

I'll decide later if its worth £5 for my latte and flapjack just to annoy the legion of bristol fixie hipsters with my carbon frame, 20 gears and lycra.

At last somebody with some sense who can see through this yuppie charade.

To be perfectly frank, I cant see it lasting long once the funding dries up.

I've done a lot of infrastructure work in the past 20+ years for Community groups, social funded projects etc. and the majority seem to follow the same format.. They last a couple of years, with the paid 'staff' coasting along. Ultimately the funding dries up and they scream blue murder to the local rags. A few months later the same people have come up with another local community idea and the whole process starts again.

Most of the (paid) people running these ventures are pretty much unemployable outside of charity/community work. Suppose it keeps them off the dole/streets though.

I dont mean to be negative, but I'm just speaking from experience. I regularly go to new community funded startups and always seem to see the same old faces. The projects never last. Bet the people with the idea have a history of charity work but little real business experience.

Are you saying Bristol has so many cafes there's no way another one can survive (regardless of bikes or not)?

I dont mean to be negative, but I'm just speaking from experience. I regularly go to new community funded startups and always seem to see the same old faces. The projects never last. Bet the people with the idea have a history of charity work but little real business experience.

You've read their business plan then? Is it your experience that leads you to make assumptions? The longer I work, the less I assume and the more I deduct from fact. I'm sure they would welcome your experienced eye over their work so far.

Are you saying Bristol has so many cafes there's no way another one can survive (regardless of bikes or not)?

Not at all.. The blurb says that they've trialed the cafe and it did well.. So why do they need funding.. Their aims seem good intentioned, so surely if they're socially minded they could work voluntarilly whilst they build up the business slowly. All profits ploughed back into providing the free/cheap services they offer.

If the cafe isnt commercially viable enough to fund the enteprise, then they will undoubtedly require more funding in the future. At some point that WILL dry up.

Are you saying Bristol has so many cafes there's no way another one can survive (regardless of bikes or not)?

No thats not my point, If the workshop element of the business can not generate enough money to subsidise the cafe, to survive, the cafe must subsidise the workshop and thus it needs to attract more than cyclists alone because for the reasons stated earlier

We the cyclists alone, are not going to generate enough custom for the venture to survive in the long term. As I said, who goes there when we are at work in the week? The critical factor is why would a non-cyclist choose this cafe over Starbucks? Call it the "mum test", why would my parents, both retired with too much time during the week, go to a cycle cafe and not starbucks or costa if there was one within the vicinity. They know what they are getting at a Starbucks, it might be average but its reliably average the world over. I just dont think a cafe with a cycling bias will generate enough custom to sustain both a cafe and a workshop.

Regardless of the bike element, a new cafe has to offer something above and beyond the existing choices to make it sustainable, it doesnt have to be unique, it could simply be location on a busy street. Whilst there is room for more cafes in Bristol (though I'm not sure where!) they can not rely on wifi, organic flapjack and fairtrade Peruvian coffee to survive...

If you need cheap/free servicing you are unlikely to also spend £5 on a latte and a piece of organic, homemade flapjack from a cafe whilst you wait, or if you can, then you should be charging them £5 for the servicing and make them forego the cake.....

I'm sounding like a broken record here, but the people buying the cake and coffee are not necessarily the ones who need bikes servicing cheaply.

The critical factor is why would a non-cyclist choose this cafe over Starbucks?

Because it's cheaper? Because it's friendlier? Because they'll be paying their staff properly? Because the coffee actually tastes like coffee and not a milkshake with 7 extra sugars added?

why do they need funding..

Because they need to cover their start-up costs. The alternative would be getting a massive loan and being owned by the bank, which would in turn reduce the profits that they're able to invest in the business and other social enterprises.

the majority seem to follow the same format.. They last a couple of years, with the paid 'staff' coasting along.

See the example of Oxford Cycle Co-op above - they've been running for over 10 years now. I think you ought to volunteer for a charity or a social enterprise before you accuse them of "coasting".

Coffee for the shop must be purchased from two day coffee roasters on st michaels hill. Great little Indy business, nice people and amazing coffee!

I've pointed Rob in their direction. 😉

And the reason for revisiting this thread...

Hi everyone! We'll be on the front deck outside Hamilton House on Stokes Croft next Tuesday afternoon (Sept 25), and each of the following three Tuesdays (Oct 2, 9 and 16). In partnership with the excellent folks from Coexist Community Kitchen and The Bristol Bike Project, we'll be running a poup bike cafe from 3pm-7pm on each of those days.

You'll be able to grab a bite (sweet and savoury, and hearty enough to be your dinner if you want) and a drink, plus get your bike checked over free of charge by a super-skilled Bike Project mechanic. We'll have to charge if you need any new parts, but the labour won't cost you a penny (donations to the Bike Project gratefully received though).

We're really excited about doing something in the real world while we get everything set up for opening a permanent premises over the next few months. So please come along and see us, have a cuppa and chat, and we can all put some faces to names.

And don't worry about the weather. We'll have some good cover for the deck. Since when were cyclists put off by the weather anyway?

I'm sounding like a broken record here, but the people buying the cake and coffee are not necessarily the ones who need bikes servicing cheaply.

Because it's cheaper? Because it's friendlier? Because they'll be paying their staff properly? Because the coffee actually tastes like coffee and not a milkshake with 7 extra sugars added

bar the cost, the vast majority of people dont actually care about any of this, particularly when there are companies going under, the threat of redundancy looming and zero economic growth. you're a coffee snob who can afford a conscience, good for you. I'm not and I can't. The fact that the likes of starbucks and costa are always busy suggests that people at worst tolerate the coffee.

the fact that the pop up cafe will be outside Hamilton House say it all.... i still wish them all the best but now I'm [i]definately[/i] coming, i'll be the one wearing the pro tour team lycra... hell, its a cycle cafe after all right? 😉

Congratulations on your 24-carat, gold-plated logic. That's why no-one bothers opening a bike shop that isn't an Evans, a food store that isn't a Tesco or a restaurant that isn't a McDonalds.

dont get me started on "the rules"....

and I know you're joking but being serious, thats the problem I am predicting, its going to be a fixie hipster hangout and everyone else gets snubbed, roadies are made to feel unwelcome and dont come back and the place goes from being a cycle cafe to a fixie cafe.... how much money do the owners lose out on because some customers treat it like their own private club and mock the others for not being in the clique....

Christ almighty. You're worried about being judged on first impressions, yet you've already decided they're a bunch of snobbish fixsters?

plus get your bike checked over free of charge by a super-skilled Bike Project mechanic. We'll have to charge if you need any new parts, but the labour won't cost you a penny (donations to the Bike Project gratefully received though).

Reckon they'll change the bearings on my carbon Santa cruz FOC??? 😀