Our major goals at Bikes on the Drive (BOTD) is advocacy, education and awareness of bike commuting, bike culture and overall community building in the East Vancouver community itself. For any business owner it just makes sense to be an active, contributing member of the local community.

One way that we do this is through supporting Global Agents for Change. This registered non-profit was founded in January 2007 by a group of young professionals, university students and social change agents from Vancouver, Canada.

During one of the many conversations ilan has with his customers, he heard about Global AFC in 2007. Being the sociable and knowledgeable guy that ilan is, (yes he did pay me to say that), ilan offered some tour consulting to new riders who might be going down in the group.

“I invited the senior people of the group down to the shop and I gave them the full run down on touring bikes; The challenges people have with bags, peddles, shoes, living out of a bike for a month,”

What we found out was that it was the first time they were given this type of knowledge and information, which you really only find out by doing or talking to someone who has.

The result was that they booked the entire team of riders to come in and talk with ilan.

It was also a complete coincidence for ilan, a former financial planner who dealt in-risk management and lending and now manages  BOTD, to find a charity that dealt in touring, cycling and microcredit lending to break the cycle of poverty in developing and third world countries. It’s a good fit to say the least.

Since that time we have offered both education for riders on repairs and maintenance of their bikes while on a trip, along with a safety briefing and equipment knowledge.

The shop also sells gear to the riders at cost to the shop.

“We had sold really strong touring packages worth up to $3,000 for $1,800 and donating all the labour associated with bikes and components,” said ilan.

With both a Mexico and European tour with a total of 71 riders, the shop was a little packed this spring and the boys (and Jaimie) were a little busy in preparing a number of bikes for the trip.

Two additional things happened this year: One with the launch of The Tree commuting and touring cycle first aid attendant, Agent Bugsy Delesalle purchased one of the first BOTD Tree by Devinci after talking with Autumn, and had it loaded for bare as she left Vancouver for Mexico: Two, ilan had gone a step further and approached the supplier and manufacturers of components and equipment for the BOTD and told them about Global AFG. As a result Brodie, Arkel, Avid, Tubus and Shimano either offered at cost or at a discount on top of whatever BOTD was offering the riders.

And while according to the official Global AFC blog, Bugsy offically hates hills. Apparently she is doing fine and heading to Seattle as we speak.

Category: Advocacy, Events

Tags: Advocacy, Agent for Change, bicycle, Canadian, charity, commercial drive, Devinci, Global, microcredit, non-profit, sustainable, touring, Tree bike

In February 2009, ilan Handelsman (general manager) and I, Darcy McCord (service manager) had the opportunity to visit the Devinci factory in Chicoutimi, QC, while The Tree was in production. It was an incredibly valuable experience. I have been working in the bike industry for many years now. I know a lot about bikes, frame materials, components and so on, and I even know a fair bit about the history of bicycles and bicycle manufacturing, but I had only the faintest clue of how bicycles are actually made.

When we arrived at the factory I was immediately impressed by how large and clean the facility was. All aspects of production take place in this one facility, from making custom dropouts with CNC machines, to welding and heat-treating the frames, to painting the frames (although we had The Tree frames outsourced to a powder-coating facility instead), to wheel building, to testing finished products in-house, to final assembly and boxing up the bikes for shipping. I suspected at first glance (and it was confirmed continually throughout the visit) that this is a well-organized operation.

Devinci currently manufactures about 20,000-25,000 bicycles in-house per year, making it one of the largest producers of bicycles in Canada and the largest producer of high-quality specialty bicycles in the country. Their current in-house production represents over half of all Devinci bicycles sold; the remainder are welded overseas in an effort to remain competitive. This is where The Tree comes in. All of Devinci’s hybrid bikes are welded in Asia (some of the models are still assembled at their factory in Chicoutimi, and some are assembled entirely overseas). This is the case with virtually all other Canadian brands as well. We believe, however, that there is a demand for a Canadian-made hybrid bicycle, and since Devinci still has a strong production facility here in Canada, they are well-suited for the job.

We were hosted by our customer service reps Scott and Dave. As we walked around the facility, we were introduced to the factory staff at each of the various stations. Although neither ilan nor I is particularly good at speaking French, it was clear to us that the relationships among staff, including between the office and factory staff, is always friendly. We really got the impression that this is a fun place to work.

The Tree frames were already welded and painted when we got there. I did, however, get to participate in some aspects of the assembly of our bike. I started at the wheel building machine, where the spokes are all laced by one machine, then sent through a tensioning and truing machine, which, frankly, boggles my mind. The lacing machine requires manual operation, but it nonetheless takes only about a minute (less if you’re good at it) to fasten all 36 spokes to the rim (in our shop, it takes about 10 minutes by hand). The rest is done by a computerized machine that I can only assume is powered by magic. A finished wheel rolls out the other end of the machine. The end product is pretty good, but I dare say I can do a better job by hand. It just takes about 10 times longer.

After the wheel building, we moved on to the assembly of the frames.

This was our first look at the frames, and we were very impressed. The powder coat and the decals looked great! We got to follow the very first frame down the assembly line, which consists of about 6-8 people at various stations. The headset cups are pressed in with a very cool machine, the fork column is measured and cut by hand, the handlebars are set up then installed, then the brakes, the bottom bracket and crank, then the derailleurs, then the rear wheel, then the cables are attached and adjusted, then it’s all packed up and put in a box, and it’s ready to go. All the while, the people putting it together are chatting and seeming to have a good time. I got to follow another bike down the line and assemble it myself. I wasn’t quite as fast as they are, but I managed to get it together eventually. Again, despite the language barrier, everyone was quite friendly and willing to help me along, and they were only slightly upset that I was slowing down the line.

We visited the welding stations and heat-treating stations as well. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, they were done for the day. However, Scott and Dave described the process and emphasized that great care is taken to ensure a quality product.

The frame is first tacked together, and then welded in an order that results in the least shifting of the tubes. It is then bathed and heat-treated. After this heat-treatment, the metal is soft and malleable, and it is at this point that each frame is checked for alignment and corrected by hand. It is then ‘aged’ (a second heat-treating process), then bathed in another series of vats to clean out impurities and prepare the frames for painting.

Devinci also has a research and testing facility on site. Frames are testing for stress-resistance by using machines that apply torque from side to side or up and down hundreds of thousands of times before the frame fails. They also check frames for crash resistance and monitor how they fail. This helps them design bikes that are strong in the right places.

It was clear to us that everyone was experienced at their job. This was important to us because it demonstrates that the end product is of a high quality and that it is built with pride. The visit really impressed on us that Devinci is a professional company that takes care to ensure that their staff are experienced and well-treated, and that their product is well-made. We are very excited, then, to introduce The Tree at our shop; a commuter hybrid bike that is made with pride right here in Canada.

Category: Story

Tags: assembly, bicycle, bike, Canadian, commuter, cro-mo, Devinci, factory, handwelded

The Tree was conceived not in a moment of inspiration but from a general frustration happening to the mid-range-hybrid commuter bikes.

Reasons were many, but a couple of years ago ilan Handelsman, manager of Bikes on the Drive (BOTD), started seeing changes in the mid-range bikes being sold by all manufacturers. These included moving the welding and painting off shore, reducing the robustness of wheels and hubs and making the bike less versatile to disc-brake upgrades.

“We want Canadian made, we want disc brake upgradability… We wanted a bike that was a bit more sustainable.” coined ilan

Spoke counts were dropping from 32/36 to 24. Bikes were no longer coming with disc brake tabs and environmental standards are much less stringent off shore.

“We don’t want to have to replace the parts on a bike more often than necessary,” said ilan. “We prefer to repair parts as opposed to replacing them. It is much more sustainable.”

Handelsman had an idea to build his own bike and with having his hand forced by trends he saw in the industry, he went to find a way he could have all he wanted in a Canadian-made commuter bike. He knew the technology was still available in Canada to build and weld bikes, but he didn’t know who would jump on board.

Devinci still has a manufacturing shop based in Chicoutimi, Quebec and currently manufactures about 20,000-25,000 bicycles in-house per year. It was a perfect candidate to build the bike. We weren’t the only ones who have ever asked a bike manufacturer for a custom build, but now we had to convince Devinci to make a bike it had essentially stopped selling years ago.

In November 2007, ilan traveled to Devinci’s offices in Chicoutimi and spoke with Max, sales manager, and Yvan, vice president and production manager for Devinci.

ilan gave the reasons why he wanted to produce The Tree but was met with some resistance at first. ilan asked them to bring out a 2007 Devinci Oslo (the bike The Tree was based on) from the plant and show how he would showcase the selling features of the Oslo.

The people at Devinci were impressed with ilan’s candour, knowledge and passion for the project and what he wanted to do with the bike. They agreed and a year later they were touring the factory in Chicoutimi,viewing their creation.

In part two find out what is going into The Tree and why we have chosen to use the components we have.

Category: Story

Tags: bicycle, bike, Canadian, commercial drive, commuter, Devinci, False Creek, handwelded, sustainable, Tree bike

Welcome to the birth of The Tree website. If a bike were to run its own website we hope it would look like this.

Throughout the summer we will bring you the story of The Tree along with events we’re at, rides we’re on and customer reviews.

So what is The Tree you ask? It is a commuter bike conceived more than two years ago by Bikes on the Drive to give bike commuters of Vancouver the quintessential ride that is made for the long haul of commuting year round. This bike was built with sustainability and serviceability in mind.

How did we accomplish this and why did we decide to reinvent the wheel? Read on to find out more. It is a bit more than a short story and in fact it is the foundation of the shop itself. The bike and the shop are both sustainable, environmentally and socially conscientious; Both are made for and by people who believe in a sustainable life.

How are we going to do this? Well, if you’re reading this post then you have already seen the way, but rather than just tell you how much we love this bike we will show you too. If you prefer video, we have a youtube account. For those of you who are a little snap happy we have a flickr account. And if you tweet, well you can find us on twitter. You can also see our friend feed to the right.

So if you want to check us out at a number of events over the summer we’ll let you know, (psst…you can also follow us on our RSS feed if you like that sort of thing). We have published our Specs and Stats of The Tree so all you gear heads can geek out over how many spokes our Shimano Deore hubs have.

But thanks for stopping by. We have our helmets on and are ready for a whirl-wind cycle this summer. We hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Category: News

Tags: bicycle, bike, commuter, Devinci, False Creek, Tree bike