How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bike

First Session — SOLD OUT
Date + time: Sunday, May 26th, 6 – 9pm
Location: Flux Factory Gallery
Materials fee: $12

Second Session + Bike Tour
Date: Sunday, June 2nd
Time: Workshop from 1 – 4pm, Bike tour from 4 – 6pm
Location: Start at Flux Factory Gallery & travel throughout western Queens
Materials fee: $5

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bike is a two part educational workshop and a spectacular group bike ride through Western Queens. Participants will leave with a new independence in traveling and a strong, conceptual understanding of bicycle design.

The first workshop will focus on understanding the basic workings of a bicycle. Participants will get their hands dirty with the gritty mechanics of ball bearings (both sealed and loose), springs, cables, housing and tires, and will have gained a new confidence in keeping a bike running under even the roughest circumstances.

In the second workshop, participants will address specific mechanical problems with their own bikes and go through various hypothetical situations. Then we will personalize the bikes (without causing detriment to their functionality) — painting, scratching, hand sewing, and accessorizing will be covered. Afterwards, we’ll celebrate with a group bike ride through Western Queens. Tour guides will provide historical perspective on the neighborhood, treating participants to eclectic stories long past and oddities easily missed.

About the instructor: Eric Petersen has been working in the bicycle industry since 2006. He was the first shop manager of Silk Road Cycles and currently is the head mechanic at Recycle-a-Bicycle in DUMBO. He commutes daily, races occasionally, and tours whenever he can. His interest in cycling borders on the obsessive. To him, bikes are a tool that both strengthen personal independence and bond communities.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bike is part of Flux Factory’s 2013 educational initiative, Make It Til You Break It, a series of hands-on workshops that teach practical skills and culminate in a group activity among participants. It is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.