It all happened on a Thursday last year. I had just finished my weekly faculty fun run and I was late for a date with my neighbors to the North for a race at Ciaciaro. My intention had been to change my wheels and brake pads over during school. However, things had gotten quite busy that day and I never had the time to do it. It was then that I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could work on my bike during work hours, get paid to do it, and have student’s benefit academically from it”.
9 months later, a few thousand district dollars in start up money, and a partnership with American Cycle and Fitness and my dream I had conceived has become a reality. The class is cleverly named Mechanics in Motion. It is specifically tailored and geared (no pun intended) towards student’s who prefer hands-on learning and display some foundational mechanical aptitude. The curriculum was written to overlap with a majority of Michigan’s standards and benchmarks in the area of Physics along with a dash of Vocational Technology.
The student’s textbook is the Barnett Bike Mechanic Manual. We spend most of our time in the class building boxed bikes for ACF, repairing student/staff personal bikes, learning how the laws and principles of Physics relate to bike racing and the progression of technology within the industry, and of course cleaning and tuning my personal bikes.
Most of the student’s have become sincerely engaged in the content of the class and have demonstrated an increased interest in the sport outside of the classroom. Most recently, we have come in contact with Back Alley Bikes (a non-profit bike co-op organization out of downtown Detroit) and plan to take a field trip before the holidays to assist in building children’s bikes for their bike giveaway during Christmas.
Most would describe my student population as “at risk” students. Many of them come from very broken homes that are suffering very much from poverty as well as underlying psychological problems. I would like to think that this class serves as a therapeutic outlet for the student’s anxiety and frustrations. We have accepted many donation bikes from ACF and it is my hope that I will be able to provide each student with a used bike that they can keep.
Last week, we learned about Pascal’s Principle and how it relates to the magnified force that hydraulic disc brakes deliver through pressure exerted by a confined fluid. To reinforce this concept, we bled and adjusted the disc brakes on my new Top Fuel. I worked on my bike during work hours and got paid to do it, mission accomplished.
