A very raucous circus

What’s even better is that Paul will be selling scads of his artwork at the Second Saturday party following the scavenger hunt.  So while you’re listening to DJ Hail Bop and Be Brave Bold Robot and throwing back some delicious New Belgium beer, you’ll have a feast for your eyes as well!

—

Hunt the Grid IV: The Circus is Coming to Midtown

Second Saturday, June 9

Sign-in starts at 3:00 PM, the hunt lasts from 4:00 to 6:00, the party starts promptly after.

Register a team (two to four participants) at circus@sacbikekitchen.org.

Event is $10 per person, cash due at sign-in.

All participants must be 18 or participate with a legal guardian.

Prizes for best circus-themed team and best scavengers!

Please bring a working bike; the Kitchen will be open as usual, but we cannot guarantee that we can help get your bike working on the day of the event.

Good music. Good beer. Good times as always.

Free admission. All ages. Profits from beer and T-shirt sales go towards running the Bike Kitchen.

The Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen is proud to bring back Hunt the Grid — our annual bicycle scavenger hunt — for an encore performance on Second Saturday, June 9th, and this year, we’re not clowning around.

We’ve told our ringleaders to pull together even better prize packs.  We’ve teamed up our strongman and lion tamer to come up with new feats of strength and bravery to match last year’s special challenges.  We’ve got our mentalist devising even craftier clues.  But this year, we’re introducing a new act: prizes for the best-dressed circus-themed teams!

You’ll need an elephant’s memory, a tiger’s cunning, and a juggler’s skill to win, but we guarantee you’ll have fun just showing up, so grab your bikes and your friends and come on down!

—

After you’ve built up your thirst hustling around town, kick back at our monthly Second Saturday party, featuring beer from New Belgium and music by Be Brave Bold Robot. As always, there’s no cover charge, so even if you skip the scavenging, you can still enjoy the tunes and suds!

—

Hunt the Grid IV: The Circus is Coming to Midtown

Second Saturday, June 9

Sign-in starts at 3:00 PM, the hunt lasts from 4:00 to 6:00, the party starts promptly after.

Register a team (two to four participants) at circus@sacbikekitchen.org.

Event is $10 per person, cash due at sign-in.

All participants must be 18 or participate with a legal guardian.

Please bring a working bike; the Kitchen will be open as usual, but we cannot guarantee that we can help get your bike working on the day of the event.

http://www.mayisbikemonth.com/

http://www.sacramento365.com/event/detail/441591925

Music. Food. Beer. Good times as always.

Free admission. All ages. Profits from beer and T-shirt sales go towards running the Bike Kitchen.

Join us for music by the MET Sacramento Band, Iris Shanks & Parie Wood, and Riot Radio Alarms.

No alcohol will be served this time, but there will be food and drinks sold to raise funds for these students and their awesome new project.

Saturday, March 10, 2012, 6pm – 10pm. Free admission. All ages. Profits from sales of food and drinks go to the MET High School Bicycle Collective.

http://www.metsacramento.org/

First off is the Night Brite Bike Parade, Wednesday, December 21. It starts at 7:00 PM on M Street between 40th and 41st, but a few SBK volunteers will be ganging up at Luigi’s Slice at J and 20th at 4:00 for some pre-ride carb loading.  For more information, check out the Facebook event.

Second is the Capitol Cargo Cruise, a benefit for the River City Food Bank. Bring your most cargo-y bike — even if it’s just your polo bike and your back pockets — and help schlep a bunch of canned goods from Edible Pedal at 1712 Liestal Row (the alley behind Old Soul on L) down to the River City Food Bank. There’ll be a first ride around 9:00 AM to collect food from local collection bins and a second ride at 2:00 PM to take the collection down to the food bank. A full itinerary and food bank wish list is up at the ride’s Facebook event.

And of course, if you’d like to lend a hand painting or scrubbing or reorganizing our shop, fire off an e-mail to i...@sacbikekitchen.org and we’ll put your idle hands to good use!

SBK Events

First, the cooler weather is inspiring even those of us who bike through fog and flood to take a break and spend some time indoors.  This means SBK’s public classes are rolling right along.  If you’re a prospective rider looking for tips on how to find a good bike on the Internet, a cyclist looking to start fixing your own flats, or an experienced roadie looking to repack your hub bearings, we’ve got the classes for you!  We’ve covered them here before, so check http://sacbikekitchen.org/2011/10/upcoming-classes/ for dates, details, and registration instructions.

Our monthly Shift Rides are chugging along, too.  This month, one of our Thursday shifts goes on the chopping block.  So Thursday, November 17th, come join us on a fun little ride from our shop.  The ride leaves at 6:00 PM, and like a true collective, we’ll hammer out the destination when we all assemble.  Bring a working bike (’cause we ain’t doin’ no wrenching), lights, and a fun attitude.

Other Events

Looking beyond our ivy-covered walls, the do-goodniks at the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates are hosting VeloBall, their 20th anniversary party, on Saturday, November 19th, featuring a live auction, silent auction, bar, music, dancing, dinner, and a raging good time.  Check SABA’s web page at http://sacbike.org/veloball/ for tickets.  Word on the street is that they need volunteers to help with the event, too; if you’ve got a hand to lend, volunteer coordinator Larry Robinson will put it to use.

And of course, cooler weather means we can finally start digging that moth-eaten wool out of our closets and start getting ready for the Sacramento Tweed Ride, on Sunday, November 13. Rick Houston’s providing pretty frequent updates over at http://sactotweed.blogspot.com/, including the just-posted ride route, a slick poster, and a tie-in with next year’s NAHBS.

More SBK Events

If you still want your SBK fix, your favorites are still around.  We’re happily hosting our third Bicyclette! on Monday, November 21 at 6:00 PM.  This is a special shop shift open to all women, transgender, queer, femmes, and anyone else who has had gender bias, homophobia, or transphobia impede them from participating in bicycle mechanics.

And, of course, SBK Second Saturday this year is bringing in the big guns; we haven’t had some heavy rock ‘n’ roll in a while, so on November 12th, we’re bringing in 50 Watt Heavy to shake our walls and frighten our neighbors, after an acoustic set from Sherman Baker and an acoustic/rock ‘n’ roll set from Blame the Bishop. All with the same delicious beer you’ve come to expect from us for the last three years.

We’ll also be closed for Thanksgiving, but chances are you’ll see most of the usual suspects out at the Appetite Enhancement Ride.

Finally, a special congratulations to Core volunteers Doug and Emjay.  After years of helping us keep our shop going, we’re pleased as punch to be able to host their wedding this November, as well.  All of us around here wish you two all the best.  Now, we just need to find them a nice tandem…

So, in the next few months, you can look forward to a few changes:

More frequent classes

Teaching bike maintenance is a big part of our mission.  Though we haven’t been as up on that as we’d like, we’ll be ending 2011 with a wealth of classes.  We’re offering our basic maintenance class once a month starting on November 20.  Before that, we’ll have  a few other classes on winterizing your bike (October 30), what to look for when buying a bike on Craigslist (November 6), and overhauling your hubs (no date set).  We’ll have more details very soon.

Monthly SBK rides

For the first time in what seems like forever, we put down our wrenches for a day last September and took off to ride those two-wheeled contraptions we love so much.  We had such a great time, we’ve decided to make that an ongoing thing.  So look forward to more SBK rides as we shut down a different shift each month to get a little quality time in the saddle and out with friends.  If you show up this  Wednesday, October 19, bring a bike that’s ready to ride, cause we ain’t gonna be wrenching!

More volunteer hours and training opportunities

Just like our public classes have tapered off, so did our volunteer time, but that’s all changing.  We’re planning on opening our shop more often to our underpaid and overworked volunteer staff, to give them more chances to work on their own projects, get more experience wrenching on different bikes, and to help beef up the camaraderie that makes our shop so much fun already.

Special events

Last month’s inaugural Bicyclette! — shop time exclusively for our female and LGBT patrons — humbled us with the turnout and energy, and we’re happy to see it take off on the third Monday of each month, including tomorrow, October 17, from 6PM to 9PM.

And like last year, we’ll be closing down again this Christmas and New Years weeks to work on the shop itself.  This year, we’re looking for a few artists to help us use up a few gallons of paint we’ve had donated.  If you’d like to help out but you’re handier with a hammer than a brush, give us a buzz; we’ll have plenty of projects to work on.