Fort Collins Bike Co-op Seeks Volunteers: HELP (WANTED)!

Bike Mechanics– Experienced or apprentice mechanics to help with Earn-A-Bikes, prep library bikes, and restore impounded and donated bikes.

Bike Co-op Greeters- Friendly greeters needed every day the Co-op is open. Help Co-op customers with bike problems, issues and answering questions.

Bicycle Retrieval Squad- Help needed to retrieve lost and abandoned bikes as necessary. Have a truck? All the better. Or use our bike + trailer to bring bikes in.

Bike Co-op Art Department- Help wanted to provide artwork for shirts, murals, posters, diagrams, signage, decals, and countless other fun stuff!

Bike Library Checkout Volunteers- Meet, greet, and entertain visitors to the Fort by checking out library bikes from the kiosk or Bike Co-op during the week.

Community Outreach, Bike Safety & Mechanics Classes- Join our team to take bike ed. To school groups, CSU and other community groups.

Earn-a-Bike Assistants- Help organize, coordinate, and promote our E-a-B program to any & all who would like to build and earn their own recovered bike.

Fundraising and Grant writing needed- Help us find that next mini-grant, major donation, and $5 monthly subscription to feed the Bike Co-op system!

Ghana Bikes Project- Help us & the World to send 450 abandoned bikes to Ghana with the Village Bicycle Project.

Iron mongers, tinkers, tinsmiths and blacksmiths needed- we need help recycling iron, steel, aluminum and more to keep it out of the landfill.

League Cycling Instructors in Training- Join our team of League of American Cyclists Bike Ed instructors who will develop and teach Bike Ed. To schools!

Newsletter Editor- We need a wordsmith to help us tell the world what we’re doing! Work with all our lead volunteers to keep people informed, inflamed, and inspired!

Racing Volunteers- Help monitor, and cheer the National Collegiate Cycling Championships in May 2009 and 6 day races around the oval this summer.

Valet Bike Parking- Bike Parking at community events make the Co-op more visible in town, spread the word, and ask for tips and donations to the Co-op.

Volunteer coordinators- Every single activity listed above needs help with coordinatin’, innovatin’, and activatin’. Maybe that would be you?!

Tabling- Customer service and sales people need to help spread the work about the Bike Co-op and our need for volunteers of all flavors!

Check out the Co-op web site today and get in touch!

Is Steamboat’s Claim to Ski Fame a Lesson for Fort Collins?

No, we have no hopes of becoming a ski town, but what about 70 Olympic athletes training here and people coming from all over the country because we’re the cycling capital of the US?

That’s the hope, anyway of the Fort Collins Velodrome Association.

The example from Steamboat isn’t all that farfetched. Read how Howelsen Hill in Steamboat got started as the only ski resort in Colorado to make the Colorado State Register of Historic Places. One of the oldest operating ski resorts in the country, National Public Radio did a feature on the ski area in December 2008.

So why not a Fort Collins cycling park, criterium course, and indoor (or outdoor) velodrome to replicate Howelsen Hill?

The photos show kids from 6 - 16 on an Italian velodrome in Forli, Italy.

Racing Teams Highlighted in Fort Collins Web Site

Check out "The Group Ride - Your Guide to Getting Dropped in Fort Collins" for a survey of the bicycle racing scene in Fort Collins. Do you know that we will again host the National Collegiate Road Championships in May 2009? Do you know that we have at least seven local amateur or semi-pro bicycle racing teams in the Fort?

And there's a lot more. Check 'em out today!