Category: Blog

Our second bike edition since Corona took place on August 11th - and was accompanied by Deutsche Welle! Whose Environment magazine Eco India contacted us and was immediately enthusiastic about the “tailwind mix”: mobility, integration and sustainability. The result is a 3-minute television report in which our current federal volunteer service provider Keiwan has a say in addition to some of our volunteers. A successful portrait - but see for yourself:

If bike sharing providers are due to questionable business conduct go broke or the city becomes too small for several providers, mostly gruesome and beautiful pictures of Bicycle cemeteries.

In order to avoid this, the provider “Byke” from Frankfurt am Main turned to us and asked whether we were interested in 350 bicycles. Wait what? The sheer volume made us swallow at first. Can we get that organized? Where should we get storage space for it? And how do the bikes get to Berlin? But because we have a long waiting list of people who have signed up for a bike with us, we decided to give it a try. Fortunately, we were not left alone with this challenge. Through cooperation with the Initiative "We tackle it" and another great bike project, the Lichtenberger Garage 10, we were actually able to handle the transport and split the costs among ourselves.

Of the 350 bikes that were brought from Frankfurt to Berlin on two truck tours with a 40-ton truck, we ultimately received 150. These are stored at a school in Charlottenburg and a Neukölln school, which in return each keep 20 bikes as schoolyard bikes can. We serviced the bikes again on two days of action and will probably start giving them to the people on our registration list at the end of July.

By then, some of the bikes have already got to know Berlin and the surrounding area: through a cooperation with the teach first gGmbH we could attach the bikes to that “Hannah Höch” - community school in Pankow to lend. This made excursions possible with the bikes, during which the students could get to know their district from a completely new perspective.

We are looking forward to further success stories that can be written with the redistribution of our small “Byke fleet” and we would like to take this opportunity to once again express our thanks to all participating organizations and volunteers.

The project funded by the national cycling plan "Status wheel" is aimed at schoolchildren who are getting to an age when they are faced with the decision whether the car should be the mode of transport of their choice in the future. Through targeted communication and joint activities at schools, the project aims to present the bicycle as an alternative to the car. Because mostly young adults prefer the car to the bicycle because they are unsafe in traffic, do not identify with it sufficiently or because they lack the ability to repair bicycles.

In the latter case, volunteers from our association were able to help break down inhibitions on one day in the “Bicycle Project Week”. With our cargo bike and a box full of tools and spare parts, Jonas, Graham and Martin made their way to the Albrecht Dürer Gymnasium in Neukölln to show students how their own bikes can be checked and how the simplest repairs can be made Hand go. For young people in their prime 😉, the interest and commitment was unusually high. And we are pleased that we were able to help make more Neukölln students technically fit for cycling.

With what felt like 50 degrees in the shade, we were able to hold our second day of action this summer. It took place as part of the Germany-wide “Open Society Day”. By participating in this self-organized holiday, which is practically off-calendar, we see ourselves and our association as part of a civil society for which the togetherness and social equality of all people are in the foreground. In doing so, we and everyone else who took part on this day set an example against the currently prevailing discourse of fear and isolation.

Everyone could take part and so in the end we were more than 20 helpers who repaired bicycles together, ate and discussed together ... And the balance of the day from the point of view of the association: 15 bicycles that will later be given to people who have escaped can.

Today we held our first day of action. We were able to use this to process the many workshop tasks that cannot be completed during normal opening hours. This time the spare parts stored in the cellar were sorted and rearranged. Thanks to the work of many volunteers, everything has now become really nice and clear.

Our workshop was also the scene of a video shoot that day. Luc, a media designer at the end of his training, portrayed our association in the context of the topic of “volunteering” for his thesis. The film will of course be submitted by us as soon as it can be published in accordance with copyright law ...

In addition, we were able to welcome members of the Rotary Club Pankow. At the beginning of May they organized a charity run, part of which was earmarked for our association's work. After we presented our premises and our association work to you, we received a donation of 2500 euros. Thanks again for that. It is always nice to see that the meaningfulness of our work for integration, mobility and sustainability receives support from all areas of society.

Incidentally, we were also able to hand over 10 bicycles to refugee families. All in all, a full, successful and fun day for everyone involved. The next day of action is sure to come ...

This year we had the opportunity to present our club at the Berlin bicycle fair “Velo” at Tempelhof Airport. In the best weather, we were allowed to take a seat with our chic baker's bike next to the Neukölln Transport School and the VCD and report to interested trade fair visitors about our work. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has agreed to support us in the form of donations and (old) bicycles. Our work in this form would not be possible without your help. We'll see you again next year at the latest in front of the imposing hangars and next to the Neukölln traffic school!

On one of our donation bikes we found a small souvenir to think about from Karl Valentin (see picture). We want to take this as an opportunity to present you the whole brilliant piece of text from the TAZ archive to read and think for yourself:

Click here for the TAZ article

Have you already seen that something is changing on Berlin's bike paths? Due to the mobility law, which was successfully initiated by the bicycle referendum, there is now a little money to finally build cycle paths, set up bicycle parking spaces and prepare existing cycle paths.

The FixMyBerlin site provides an interactive map on which you can see where bike paths are currently being worked on, what has already been completed and which bike paths are planned.

Click here for Fix My Berlin!