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

We at the Bikes on the Drive (BOTD) have been working hard this summer, so hard we had our busiest month ever at the shop in the month of May. And while we feel chained to the shop sometimes we decided to close the shop down and hit up Critical Mass while riding our new Tree bike by Devinci with some riders from Global Agents for Change.

And while we had a mini mass of 15 riders heading down to the Art Gallery to join over 900 cyclists we can honestly say it was the best idea we have ever come up with at the shop.

It was also the first time I took out a Tree for an extended ride. I had rode the bike around East Van and down to False Creek, but this was the first time I had rode the bike for more than an hour and in a lot of traffic (cars and bikes).

I also really like my old school Norco I have been riding around for the last year, it isn’t flashy or new and the frame is at least 20 years old. But I can honestly say that all of that changed when I took the Tree through its paces over the course of the night. It was by far one of the smoothest, hard-frame rides I have enjoyed since I started riding in Vancouver last year. I also had to shoot picture with one hand and ride with the other, so I felt it was a quite stable ride too.

After the ride the group from the shop went down to the Global Agents for Change BBQ in East Van where we rested our tired feet and filled our bellies with some nicely cooked burgers while meeting riders from across North American who would be taking part in the ride.

This is where ilan came up with the idea of closing down the shop on Critial Mass Friday. It was by all accounts the best critical thinking he had done all day.

So for the rest of the summer will be closing the shop at 5 p.m. on Critical Mass Fridays and enjoying a nice, long ride at the end of the week. Being a bike enthusiast yourself we hope you know why we decided to close down early one Friday a month and hope you will join us!

Category: Events

Tags: Advocacy, commuter, critial mass, downtown, False Creek, Granville, photography, Staff party, sustainable, Tree bike

The second part of the inspiration for The Tree took over when the owner brought the bike home.

“A bike is designed to sell, it is made to look good on the showroom floor,” said Darcy McCord, the knowledgeable  service manager at the shop.

Much like anything, manufacturers up-scale parts on the bike that the consumer can see, and to save money downscale parts that have less visibility.

“It is really problematic from a service perspective, because we see a lot of bikes that are relatively new, and some of the better parts on the bike are in great shape and some of the less good parts are in really bad shape after not too much riding. In particular one of the worst cases of that is the hubs, which often they (manufacturers) will use off-brand hubs that are one, not very good quality and two, when they do fail you can’t get replacement parts for them.”

BOTD also found that manufacturers were trying to edge out each other in weight of their mid-range consumer bikes regardless of the quality of the Components in the bike.

“We decided to favour robustness over weight for the tree,” replied ilan.

BOTD decided to go with Shimano Deore on the entire drive train and many components because of the high degree to which component parts can be replaced and serviced. In short, a great balance between durability, performance and price.

“When your bike does need servicing, all parts are either repairable or replaceable,” said Darcy.

The headset is a FSA conventional headset with pressed-in cups as opposed to an integrated headset, which is harder to service and harder to replace.

“So instead of up-spec-ing some parts and down-spec-ing others. We went medium specifications on everything, and in the long run it will be a much better deal for the owner,” said Darcy.

One of the benefits to living on the West Coast is the ability for the general commuter to bike year round to work, but with all the wet weather we are used to in Vancouver over the winter the rims can take a real beating from the constant braking as a result of mucky/wet brake pads. The disc brakes upgrade does come as an option and is completely upgradeable after the fact. But we have included this opinion because over the long run it will save you from replacing rims.

BOTD also requested that the bike be painted by powder coating as opposed to spraying because it has a longer lasting finish and it is gentler on the environment. All the unused powder can be reused on the next bike.

“Power coating is a long lasting finish process than a liquid paint,” according to ilan. “It is a much better process for the environment.”

Category: Story

Tags: bicycle, Canadian, commuter, False Creek, handwelded, Shimano Deore, sustainable

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