Is your child Ready “to Kick butt in school?”
Buy one of these: a Baby Bike Repair Station
While, “it all started with the workstation at Avery Brewing,” we are going to “start this story at the Rayback Collective because the starting point of a story is always arbitrary anyways.”
The finished Rayback workstation is in the entrance of the brewery by the fence where the travelers leave their bikes. (Kind of like horses, “in the old days.)
Through a story and the ideas of a “public bike repair station,” I am going to attempt to sell you on the “idea of a Baby Bike Repair Station” in this blog post/advertisement.
“Functionality” and use of the existing “Public Bike Repair Stations”
The Standard Bike Repair Workstations were invented because the traditional methods of “public bike repair stations aren’t working.” The tools often end up stolen despite the heavy metal cabling.
The tools were often tangled. Since just about every repair on the bicycle involves “a twisting or turning motion” of the tool, using the tools attached to the tangled metal cable was difficult. Combine that with a tool that had been chosen because it was “cheap,” it was probably “rounded at the edges.”
Bikes are extremely functional vehicles. There is literally nothing on a bike that is “not being used at all times.” You could make the case that “broken accessory mounts” count as something “not in use.” However, those should be discarded if they are broken.
Point is; if the bike repair station “isn’t very functional,” how are you going to fix a vehicle that “thrives on function?”
With the traditional thought of “people steal things, thus you can’t give them anything,” we have come up with “custom models” for each application of the workstation. For example, at Avery Brewing, we put carabiners attached to the lanyards and each one of the tools. That means, they are 100% steal-able within seconds. Since, the workstation is “for employees only” guarded by a barbed wire fence during closed hours and “way out in Gunbarrel,” it was decided that we would put lanyards on the tools with attachment pieces. As a result, six months in to “the study,” I have found that “not a single tool has been stolen.”
History of Rayback:
When I “realized why Sophia seemed upset” in this photo, it occurred to me that “it was because this bike repair workstation is for adults.”
When I realized that “this smart cookie” might not like the fact that “the world is designed for adults,” it occurred to my “marketing mind” to invent a Baby Bike Repair Station for Sophia and “the world.”
College will be outdated in 2035 unless your kid wants to be an engineer.
AKA: The “four year party experience will be pointless unless the child is studying something that can make a difference.”
Start now by allowing your child to “pretend to work on the most efficient machine in the world.”
Fake it till you Make It
Your baby will not really be able to “fix a bike.”
They will “start to understand that a bicycle is a machine.”
Many machines in the World
How is that “bicycles are the most efficient?”
Reason: the “fuel”/breakfast that you ate is also the same you need to ride your bike to work/school/friend’s house, thus making “the human transportation cost of moving your body”: inexpensive.
By the time “the child is older,” they will be able to tighten things on the bike (everything is attached one way or another by a thing that screws in; mostly bolts). Their first Physics class “will be a lot more interesting.”
Standard Bike Repair has a goal to sell 30 Baby Bike Repair Stations between now and “the Christmas season.” Finally, we have a product to sell for Christmas.
Is your child “the next Elon Musk?” That is a “tall order.” Let’s forget that idea. That man “is under a lot of stress.” Let’s understand that “that much success” may not be what you want if you are like most parents who want their child “to be happy and live a relaxed, blessed life.” I don’t know exactly what Elon is going through, but I don’t know if it is “relaxed.” That being said, have you read his tweets or heard rumors of his Burning Man stories? He is certainly “living a life.”
Being “that good” is “almost impossible,” let’s focus on “being ahead of the curve.” Malcom Gladwell’s book “Outliers” has a chapter on child geniuses that proves that it is not necessarily “the tippity top” that “get ahead and have wild success,” it is the ones who have a mix of “sensing the opportunity” and “being ahead of the curve.”
A “machine” explains “the way of the world.” The Baby Bike Repair Station is a way to “forgo the smartphone” and explore “reality.” If “smartphones” are this generations “smoking cigarettes,” we are in for “children and adults glued to virtual reality like they foretell in the science fiction books.”
If you want your child to be “genius level,” thus “ahead of the curve,” ready for you to train/show/allow them to recognize and accept that opportunity, first get them started with a device that presents mechanical problems and movements.
Energy-Efficiency, Bike Repairs and Bicycles
Knowing how to build something, is the 1st step to curiosity.
Not really, don’t you have to be curious before “learning how to build it?” Yes. Taken a step further: “If your child learns how a bicycle works at an early age, they will be ‘well on their way’ to understanding the need for knowledge in mechanical engineering and physics.”
Everything in this blog/advertisement is “conjecture” and simple. I prefer making “broad strokes on the way the world works” and seeing if it makes sense from there. Thus, you may begin to see the logic as I present it.
Given today’s “fake news,” we can almost “claim anything” any time.
See how the bike is too big? It is almost like, “the whole world is for adults.” Let’s give it up “for the little people.”
This picture of the back of the Rayback workstation. I have yet to add magnets to the Baby Bike Repair Workstation. It can pull the metal quite quickly and forcefully when the metal tools go near. Plus, they are expensive and in use in other areas of the shop. If a baby eats a magnet or a battery, it is a “big deal” and thus should be vigorously avoided. They are so useful for tool storage, due to their visibility and ease of “putting the tool back.”
Is this baby-safe?
It is not.
— Given: just about every toy at Toys R’ Us says ‘Not for children under 3.’
It is safe to say: this product would not be approved for children under three.
I, Ryan, “stand by my product,” and the reason: the Baby Bike Repair Station should not be “played with” unless you, the adult, are present. There are “all sorts of ways” that babies can “poke their eye out.” If you are there, they probably won’t.
Assumption: you know more about bike repair than they do.
At the least: you two will get a “time-out from the smartphone.”
At the most: you will learn new ways to communicate with your child, your child may start asking questions about physics, chemistry and engineering, and they will learn how to repair a bike.
Sophia hasn’t even used it yet. The Baby Bike Repair Station was installed on Saturday night and her mom and I “got in a fight” on Sunday morning about whether it was “too cold or not to take her into the pool.” Since, it is “Grandma day” on Mondays, I have not yet been able to see if she likes it/can use it/is inspired by it.
Update: we are back to “normal,” where I see Sophia “at least once every day.” When I bust out the smart phone, such as ‘to take a picture’ around her, she “all of a sudden wants nothing else, but the phone,” thus I keep it “out of sight, out of mind.”
Wednesday: June 28th, She addressed the Baby Bike Repair Station as I carried her near it and reached for “seat post measuring tool” when I carried her near.
Another instant; while walking, she approached and grabbed a fistful of each of the two posts.
What does she know?
She has seen the frame, but doesn’t seem to recognize it as a frame. During an appointment the other day, in front of a customer named Chris, she picked up the Park Tool Star Nut Setter, which as bike mechanics will know, is heavy little barbell. Eventually, after at least thirty seconds, I asked for it and took it out of her hand because I was worried that she would drop it on her foot.
Usually, she attempts to pick things up, but she has not attempted to pick up the frame; it is too awkward and heavy for her.
If you would like to join Ryan and Sophia to teach your young-un to learn bike repair, please call me. I am here to be of assistance to you, people that seek esoteric ways of learning.
Bike repair is “here to stay.” Let’s learn a “life-long skill” together.
720 – 837 -8984
or ryan@standardbikerepair.com
