Learn to fix your bicycle yourself in the Bike Kitchen
The Bike Kitchen in the basement (and bike park) of the university campus on Roeterseiland is a great success. Since September, the do-it-yourself bicycle workshop has been open three times a week, and has been fully booked every day so far.
“It is an incredible success,” says project leader Romée Nicolai. Students, employees and local residents have discovered University Amsterdam’s Bike Kitchen. A Bike Kitchen is a do-it-yourself bicycle workshop where people can learn how to repair and maintain their bike. And thus use their bicycle for longer. In addition to tools and a professionally equipped space, there is always support by a ‘bike mechanic’. This is someone who helps and advises visitors while carrying out bicycle repairs.
Hands behind the back
“The mechanics have experience and skills, but they help ‘with their hands behind their backs’. Cyclists fix the bikes themselves.” says Nicolai. People come with all kinds of bicycle problems: broken brakes, spoke problems, broken chains, flat tires. Many people can also use help with simple things such as inflating or patching a tire. The Bike Kitchen is a meeting place as well, for workshops and more. And there is a community associated with the Bike Kitchen with now some 40 members. They are all volunteers who want to be involved in the implementation and support of the initiative.
Value of the bicycle
The Bike Kitchen has three objectives: Stimulating autonomy, as a bicycle gives you access to mobility; Facilitate a learning place and Make people aware of the value of their bicycle.
Nicolai: ‘The entire society has become service-dependent. Many people no longer know how to patch a tire and are not aware of the value of their bicycle. Products used to have a lifetime warranty, but now tens of thousands ‘orphan bicycles’ in the city are thrown away in the canal or not collected from the bicycle depot every year. We want to prevent this and contribute to a circular economy. We do this by developing awareness about the value of bicycles. So that people no longer see their bike only as a temporary means of transport, but make the bicycle their own.’
Berlin, Helsinki, Barcelona
UVA’s Bike Kitchen is not the only one in the world. The idea originated in the United States, where there are such workshops in various places. It has also reached Europe: Berlin, Helsinki and Barcelona. And in city district Amsterdam Zuidoost a Bike Kitchen has started as well.
Nicolai set up the Bike Kitchen together with ‘Fietsprofessor’ Marco Te Brömmelstroet from the Urban Cycling Institute of the UVA. In addition to the University of Amsterdam, bicycle wholesaler PENDLR/Kruitbosch and the Urban Cycling Institute are important partners of the Bike Kitchen.
For further growth and development, the Bike Kitchen is open for collaboration with more parties that want to participate. If you are interested, contact the Bike Kitchen. See also: student.uva.nl/bikekitchen.
