 Jeff Shaw, and I'm the production manager at Davis Media Access. Welcome to, in the studio, the pandemic version. Normally we'd be in our studio recording these shows, talking to community members. We're both now talking from our homes separated, socially distanced during the pandemic. And today we're going to be talking to a very exciting person because we have some news to share regarding the bike garage in Davis, California, and the bike campaign. So joining us is Maria Contreras-Tibet. Welcome, Maria. Glad you're there safely at home. Thank you. It was such a short ride here. Yes, exactly. In fact, we will talk a little bit about biking and the pandemic and how that's been affected. But just give us a little bit of background on the bike campaign and the bike garage. I know you've been doing it for quite some time now. Maybe give us, for those of people who aren't familiar, give a little bit background information on the campaign and bike garage. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. The bike campaign's been around for 10 years. It's hard to believe 10 years that we've been encouraging more people to get on bikes. And our number one objective has always been to decrease traffic congestion, especially in front of schools. And 2020 made that dream come true in a really big way. And we give support to people that want to ride bikes by being a really welcoming hub, human, urban bicyclists, helping urban bicyclists. That's who we want to help. And there's a lot of people out there that come to Davis and Yolo County that like the image of bike riding, but they may not have ever done it, ever, or maybe haven't ridden a bike since they were kids. And they need a reintroduction. And we do that at our bike garage. We work on their bikes if they have one. Maybe it has flat tires. And we also work with each individual rider to help them get comfortable and more confident navigating their way from one place to another on bike versus in a car. And I know that you started the bike garage in Woodland in particular. Davis is sort of known as a bike city. Is Woodland have the same reputation? Oh, no, it was the polar opposite. In fact, bike riding was very negatively stigmatized. It was considered, you know, you either were a poor person or you had a DUI, some negative reason why you were on a bike. And again, we've seen a huge change in that, especially during 2020. People got those bikes out of their garages, brought them to the bike garage to make sure they were safe to ride, and just started getting out their hordes of people on bikes, hordes of people on bikes, entire families, all ages, all ethnicities, bike writings for everybody. And it's been wonderful to see that such a big change in a place like Woodland over the last 10 years, but especially over the past year. And here in Davis too, we see a lot more people on bikes during the daytime running errands, getting around for just enjoyment or physical movement. It's a wonderful thing to see. I was going to mention, I know a lot of bike stores have seen an increased in bike purchases. And in fact, there's been shortage of things like as common as bicycle tubes and tires, things that normally we take for granted have suddenly become a hot commodity. Have you found that to be the case that the increased popularity of using bicycles is transportation during the pandemic? Yes. We're very prudent about everything we use, whether it be a recycled bike tube. If we can recycle a bike tube, we're certainly going to do it. Taking bikes off of bikes, taking tires off of bikes that maybe the bike itself can no longer be used. It's too far gone, but the tires are okay. We want to reuse those again, brake pads, everything, everything, kickstands, seats, those are all things we need and are much harder to come by. They're costing us more, but that's okay. That's totally okay because it's really encouraging more people to think recycling and upcycling. And we love being a place where that can happen. So do you have a lot of, do you have volunteers that work with you to work on these bikes and take the tires and tubes off of bikes? Do you have a group of volunteers? Have you always had a group of volunteers and have you seen that increase or decrease during the pandemic? Well, during the pandemic, it's been wonderful to see people come out and want to be a part of this movement. And so our number of volunteers have increased. Young and old women, men, it's just a variety of people that want to be a part of this huge movement that's not only impacting Davis and Woodland. This is happening all over the United States. It's happening all over the world. More people are getting on bikes. And it's not really even just about exercise or recreation. It's a different lifestyle. It's a culture. And I'm so excited that Davis has been a part of that culture and a part of my life for over 50 years. And so it's in my DNA. And I want to share that with as many people as possible because I firmly believe that riding a bike is joyful exertion. So I do want to ask you about the new project in Davis or the new opening in Davis. But before I ask that, I wanted to ask, do people who come to you and want to volunteer, do they have to have mechanical knowledge of how to use a bike, not how to use a bike, but mechanical knowledge on how to work on a bike? Or do you accept volunteers who don't have much experience? Yeah, you know, they don't have to have any experience, the desire. If they want to use a bike themselves, we certainly want to teach them how to do it. And there's a lot to know. A lot of people think, oh, I already know how to ride a bike. Well, if the last time you rode a bike, you were six years old and it was in the cul-de-sac, that's a different kind of experience than using your bike to go down covelle or 8th Street or Russell Boulevard. You know, which path do you use? What side of the road are you on? Do you know any hand signals? Do you feel comfortable riding next to cars? Is there a better path to go that has fewer cars on it? And that's why we also created the Davis Bike Map and we keep it very up to date so that people know what their options are to get from one place to another place and not necessarily using the path that they would have driven there. And do you have any staff? Is it all volunteers? It's all volunteers. We did hire a manager to run our Woodland location and that's been wonderful. Jamaica had been working with jump bicycles who they sold their company right as COVID began. They were a huge boon to Davis. We're very excited about the electric bike industry too. You know, I'm ready for an electric bike when the need should arise. It's a great way to go longer distances using a little bit less physical effort maybe getting to the other end of the trip a little bit less sweaty so it's a great alternative or if people have diminished energy or physical limitations, an electric assist bike can help. So having Jamaica on our team who has so much knowledge and is truly one of Northern California's best bike mechanics and just a really wonderful person to communicate with people that are new to bike riding or with experienced bike mechanics. He basically knows it all. We love having him on our team. I would say volunteers right now. We have probably about 20 in many different facets. We have men and women that enjoy working on bikes. We have men and women who are comfortable working on bikes but don't want to be anywhere socially close to another person. So they're working on bikes at home which has been wonderful and so helpful for us. We have people that help on the media and creative and we have volunteers that help with our big community bike rides like we just did the Zombie Bike Parade and the Polar Bear Ride. These are huge community events that people are enjoying. The next big community event will likely be Lupaloza in May and then the Ice Cream Ride during the summer and we just get people to just get out there on the Davis bike loop. It's a little over 12 miles and ride, wave at their friends and have a good time. Excellent and so the exciting news is that you just opened a bike garage in Davis after being in Woodland for all these years and I'm wondering what was the impetus for that or how did that come about? Well we'd been looking, looking, looking for 10 years. Our original desire I live here in Davis would be to open a location so I wouldn't have to drive to the bike garage and finally a location just came, came into being. We're located at the little barn behind the big barn at the cannery. So when people pull into the cannery, the main entrance, they see a big barn to their right and behind that's a little barn. It was a tractor shed and it's perfect for repairing bikes. It's perfect for having used bikes available for people. We can give training sessions out there so it pretty much is just a great place for people to come to and whatever their questions are, whatever support they need, we want to help move them forward in their experience of bicycling and bike culture. Right and do you take donations of, I'm sure you take monetary donations but do you take bike donations as well and parts donations? Yes we do and as a matter of fact we survive on people's bike donations. People in Davis buy bikes which is wonderful. Sometimes they outgrow them or they decide they want to ride a different kind of bike and it's, and it's a good bike but maybe it's got a couple flap tires or whatever and they don't quite know what to do with it. We need that bike. We're going to have our mechanics thoroughly go through the bike. We call it upcycling. A little different than recycling. If the bike's too far gone sometimes that happens it's been left out in the rain for several years that sort of thing. Sometimes there's salvageable parts and we need those too and we have interns, young people that are being trained all the time on how to disassemble a bike and how to figure out which parts are still usable again and we want to reuse those parts when it's possible. So yes we need those donated bikes or any parts of pumps that kind of thing that people have that somebody else could use. That's excellent and so what is now that you have a Davis location and I assume that we will put up the hours as to when people can go there and visit you and visit the bike campaign and learn about bike safety, learning about bike mechanics and overall get on a bike and I assume maybe some winterizing technique tips and tricks too like fenders and lights and that type of thing. But what's next for the bike campaign or what do you have a future plans or is this the pandemic is I'm sure made you very busy. It has made us really busy and it really just reinforced for us the importance of letting the public know that they have a choice when it comes to how they're going to get their kids to school. No matter what and no matter if we're in Davis or in Woodland or probably anywhere in USA there's huge traffic congestion around every single school in the United States and it's shameful because it's dangerous it's toxic people sit and sometimes idle for 20-30 minutes close to a school just polluting the air that's around the school and these are some of our you know most vulnerable people in our community are kids that are going to these schools and maybe they have asthma and so we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to know that they have options. The city of Davis produces some wonderful maps on safest routes to school so we direct people to the city of Davis website getting around Davis and look for those safe routes to school maps and start riding with kids right now right now while your kids are doing distance learning get up in the morning eat breakfast get dressed and get on their bikes if they're young kids go with them up till maybe maybe fourth or fifth grade ride with your kids to school wave at their friends who also rode their bikes to school and then go back home again and then begin the distance learning day okay this gets a lot of oxygen going to the brain and ensures that these kids are going to do better when they have to sit down for the next several hours behind a computer screen. I know that for me personally getting out on the bike has been a saving grace during the pandemic I'm glad to hear that you're you're promoting the same type of activity well we've been I'm afraid we're running out of time so if there's anything else you'd like to add how do people get a hold of you do you have a website that they can go to yeah so it's very easy to find we're www.thebikecampaign.com the bikecampaign.com I'm fun Maria at sbcglobal.net people are welcome to contact me via email people can phone me and actually get their questions answered live which is an unusual thing doesn't happen that much anymore in most industries of any kind I take questions all day long people have every imaginable question and there's almost a bike for everybody even people that are starting to lose balance maybe have some physical limitations or are fearful they haven't ridden a bike or have maybe haven't ridden a bike since they were young there's solutions for just about everybody and the biggest thing that we love about it is it just brings a lot of joy and positive endorphins to people's brains and we want to share this and get more of our community up and rolling well you heard that Davis residents and anyone else watching take advantage of Maria being available to answer questions well thanks for joining us from your home today Maria we've been joined we've been talking to Maria Contreras-Tebbett founder of the bike campaign and the bike garage and with the exciting news that there's now bike garage and Davis for people who live in Davis and you've been watching in the studio the pandemic version where we're both from home as you can see and if you like the more information about the bike campaign go to thebikecampaign.com thanks again Maria for joining us and stay safe thank you Jeff