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A mate is getting ready to open a new bike workshop and cafe in Bristol. It'll be run as a non-profit cooperative with social aims, like free bike maintenance for people on low incomes, but the idea is also to create somewhere where riders can meet up, hang out and enjoy great food and coffee.
[video]
It's already been trialled during this year's Cycle Festival (at the bottom of Park Street) and it was a big hit. The cafe out the front did good food, a nice cup of tea and it was pretty much guaranteed that you'd bump into some mates or get chatting to some friendly types.
The back room was a hive of activity with people bringing in their hack bikes for free tune-ups and cheap maintenance - over 100 done that week I believe.
The next stage is to give it a permanent home, which is going to need some start-up funding. So he's putting it out to crowd funding, with rewards like t-shirts, discount cards and more depending on how much you pledge.
The aim is to raise £12,000.00 over the next 45 days (more if possible) and people have already pledged over £1,000.00.
If it doesn't hit that target, your money gets refunded. If it exceeds its target, it'll help reduce the initial borrowing. There are more links on the crowd funding page included a full business plan.
Bristol already has nice cafes and socially-minded bike maintenance projects, but nothing that really combines the two into somewhere you can just drop into. Basically Bristol is crying out for something like this (I say as much in the video above) so it would be great if we could all get behind this and help to make it a reality.
Posted : 12/09/2012 9:35 am
