Project complete!

Here is a representative of The Cooperative Ministries who accepted the gift of what is essentially a new bike from the 5th grade class at AC Moore.

Today was the 5th grade graduation ceremony which included the class presenting the bike. They were really grateful and said they will provide it to someone who needs a bike to get to work. Maybe the Charlie Whitehurst theme will give that person a little extra motivation to work towards their dreams.

I want to thank Joshua Scott who had the idea for this theme and did a lot of work on this as well as all the 5th graders who participated. Your efforts really made a difference. We're happy to help Roots & Shoots meet the goal of Roots & Shoots to get kids to "take action to make the world a better place for people, animals and the environment." Elizabeth Balthazor, AC Moore's guidance counselor, was a tremendous help in getting everything set up and might have more energy than anyone I know. The 5th grade teachers including Mr. Pitch and Ms. Cannady were really helpful in allowing the kids time to work on this project. Thanks everybody for what you did.

Progress

Here's what holds a disk brake caliper onto the front fork. The bolt has washers and interestingly shaped spacers that allow a big degree of adjustment in the final position of the caliper. This is important to make sure you get the maximum braking power from the assembly without losing your momentum to the pads dragging the caliper.

Details. You'd never know how much engineering thought has gone into the smallest details of a quality bike. Until you look very closely.

Here is my crew from a couple of weeks ago. We mounted the front disk brake and got it working. As at every step we discovered some other things that need to be attended too. The headset was really sloppy even though very tight. We took it back apart and figured out we had left out one spacer. Oops.

We wondered what that spacer was left over from.

Joshua and a great kid whose name I can't remember. Some kids are naturals at working on mechanical things. They instinctively are interested with the spatial relationships of the parts. They like the way it feels to snug down a bolt. They are born gearheads.

This guy is one of them. He attached the whole front caliper with a tricky little torx wrench and six little screws. He has good patience and coordination.

Here's Trey trying out a top of the line mountain bike. He likes to ride wheelies. They call it cat walking around these parts.

Where we are: we have replaced all the brake and gear cables and some of the housings. We put the derailleurs on. The only things that remain to be done are putting on the chain and then tuning the derailleurs to make it shift right. The bike is done except for that and I want to disassemble and check the fork to make sure it is working properly.

Shambrika installing the disk caliper on the fork. It really is amazing how interested these kids get in how stuff like this works. I let them figure out how to use the wrench and how to decide what needs to be done next.

Watch for updates soon as we finish up the project and figure out who to give this bike to.

The Charlie Whitehurst bike

Hi everyone. My name is Dave Freireich. I am a parent volunteer at AC Moore where my son Eli is in 4th grade. I started out mentoring AC Moore students a few years ago and come once a week to do so. Working with the kids is usually the highlight of my week. They love to learn and figure things out which works out great since I have no idea what I am doing. My philosophy of teaching is very low on lecture, structure, or any other systematic approach. We just set a goal and then do whatever we need to achieve it.


My wife Meg started a chapter of Roots and Shoots at AC Moore. She has a number of worthwhile projects going on. I decided to help out by getting the kids involved in a project to recycle quality bicycles and parts into complete bikes we could then donate to the community or, um, something. We'll figure it out once we have a complete bike.


I was inspired to do this by seeing kids riding bikes around with no seat, warped wheels, broken chains, missing pedals, and other problems that are simple to fix if someone will just show you how. I had the good fortune to have a dad who taught me this stuff and I want to pass along the feeling of pride and independence you get from solving a problem all on your own. Bikes have always been an escape tool for me. If you have a high quality bike you ride a lot more. Riding and maintaining bikes is a great way to learn general problem solving and a variety of other skills, not to mention staying in shape and in tune with your world. If you know how to take care of a bike you can keep it going for a very long time for not much money. Instead of buying a new one when you get bored with it you can change its' look or some of the components. Through Roots & Shoots "youth of all ages are taking action to improve our world through service learning projects that promote care and concern for animals, the environment and the human community." We are teaching these kids how to build and maintain a bike for the betterment of their bodies, their minds, our environment, and their community.


We started this project with an old mountain bike of Eli's that had it's wheels and seat stolen. It was a quality frame with some good components. The kids sanded down the old paint and removed all the stickers. That took several weeks. Joshua had the great idea to build a Charlie Whitehurst bike in honor of the SC native who has made it into the NFL. We painted it Chargers blue and applied some Chargers stickers I sourced. Here are a couple shots of the kids putting the first component back on the bike, the bottom bracket.

















When's the last time you saw a group of 5th grade girls installing a bottom bracket? Since these photos I bought a repair stand which makes things a lot easier.


We've now progressed. I bought some new wheels and a seat. The kids installed rim strips and tires and tubes on the wheels. We installed a new rear cluster. We have put on the handlebars and a very nice Manitou Black suspension fork that someone had put out on the curb. The kids put on new grips, a water bottle cage, the cranks and pedals, and the new seat and seatpost. Here's the photos:
























Joshua likes to ham it up for the camera.








George likes to distract himself.











We've had to change directions with the front brake. The fork I found only has disk brake mounts. The bike was set up for cable rim brakes. I bought a cable actuated disk brake which we should be able to make work with the old brake lever. I had to order a new rim with a disk mount hub. This is going to be a really nice bike with the long travel fork and disk brake. Tomorrow we are going to work on putting on the brake and hopefully the wheel if it arrives in time. We should be finished in a couple more weeks. Check back for updates on our progress!