By Callum Ludwig
Bike riding enthusiasts or just those who are looking to add a new skill to their bow are more than welcome to enrol in an eight-week bike maintenance course.
Box Hill Institute and Yarra Valley ECOSS have teamed up to provide the course, which is utilising ECOSS’ Upcycles space which was recently built by volunteers after funding was received from Sustainability Victoria.
Yarra Vally ECOSS Executive Officer Chelsea McNab said the courses are open to anyone aged 17 or over that is not enrolled at school.
“We’re really excited to be able to offer it and we hope people sign up because the intention of the space was to have opportunities for courses like this. We are really happy Box hill Institute came on board and wanted to do this straight away,” she said.
“Fortnightly, we run a series of bike maintenance courses as well for school children or those who couldn’t come during the week. That’s facilitated by Damian Auton, a well-known competitive mountain biker who has computed all over the world and is the founder of the Cog Bike cafes.”
The sessions will run for eight weeks on Thursdays from 13 October, from 10am to 2.30pm. A concession fee for the whole course is $22.50 or the full fee costs $73.80.
Ms McNab said courses like this empower people to be able to do things themselves and learn important skills.
The courses h are really simple from learning how to set your bike up so that it’s really comfortable for your body and comfortable to learning to change a flat or fix your brakes which a lot of people don’t know how to do, including me,” she said.
“You can also go to the next level in certain skills, all the way to learning to fix hydraulic brakes, which is a bit of specialist skill. People pay a lot of money to get these things done and perhaps, they can do it themselves.”
The eight-week course will teach people how to recognise main bike parts and how they integrate with each other, tool recognition and their uses, diagnosing and solving mechanical problems, dealing with common damage and learning how to perform on-ride repairs.
Ms McNab said these programs are really important for providing greater access to riding and other activities.
“It also brings a social aspect to it, it gives the meeting space for people to come and exchange ideas, and perhaps they make a friend that they can go riding with, find out good ways to ride to work, or maybe just get more inspired and feel a sense of community with a common interest,” she said.
“Bike riding can also play a big part in reducing carbon emissions, and is a good option with the cost of fuel through the roof. We really need to start looking at bikes as a sensible means of transport.”
For further information or details on how to enrol for the Box Hill Institute course call 8892 1717 or email preaccred@cae.edu.au.
For those interested in ECOSS’ fortnightly sessions they can contact Damian Auton at upcycles@ecoss.org.au.
