top of page

Internship

I did my internship at cycles of change, or as it is now called changing gears bike shop. It is located on the Naval base and is a non profit second hand bike repair  shop, they also sell bikes that are donated. My supervisor was Jerrard Green, and I filled the position of a handyman of sorts. for a full description of what  did take a look at the closing report.

closing report

 

 

I did my internship at cycles of change or as it is now called changing gears bike shop. Changing gears is a non-profit second hand bike repair place, that will also accept donations and sell you reassembled bikes and new parts as well as old parts. The 3 people working there are incredibly nice and it’s a place to do good work and actually have fun while you do it.

 

 

While I was working there I most of what I was doing had to do with the mechanics and structure of the bikes, namely maintenance, rust removal, assembling of ordered bikes, and breaking down unusable ones for their good parts. However I did do quite a lot of other stuff there as well, I put purchasable bikes on their website along with their information regarding cost, condition, and type of bike. I started some sales and made recommendations to customers, and re-stocked the new parts shelf.

 

 

In my time there I did pretty much every thing to a bike that could be done. I have changed tires, inner tubes, and wheels. Replaced gears and straightened spokes. Assembled and adjusted brakes and in general pieced and salvaged old rusty bikes into working ones.

 

When I first started working there they didn't really know how helpful I would be so they had me derusting a big pile of bikes, pretty soon they had me change an inner tube, and things went on from there. Eventually I was assembling some brand new bikes that they had ordered on request. In addition to that I have sorted spokes and seats, adjusted chains, greased axles, moved stock, and and helped lock up all the bikes at closing.

 

In addition, I did some stocking and checking, making sure that all the parts that were ordered got where they need to go. I also updated their site to show the new bikes that were available for purchase and took pictures of them for that purpose, I would then add some information about them and the price determined by the others. Near the end of the internship I even helped make a few sales.

 

 

I guess you might say that the skills I used and trained were engineering and fine motor skills, patience and persistence, interpersonal abilities, and organisation and marketing (from the website)

 

 

While doing this I learned quite a lot. Most of what I learned was about bikes and mechanics in general but I also learned what some work environments are like (this was probably more casual than most other places but it’s still good knowledge). I also learned how to talk to customers in a professional setting.

 

 

One particular challenge that stuck in my mind was when I was trying to change the gears on a rim and I simply could not figure out how to get the old ones off. So i’m sitting there for like 20 minutes and trying desperately to get this rusty hunk of point metal off of a perfectly good rim, and I felt like I couldn't ask for help because everyone was busy. So finally one of the other people working there came over and showed me how to do it. It turns out that there was a special tool for doing exactly what I was trying to do. I guess the morals of this particular experience is that I should ask for help more and If I can’t figure something out in 10 minutes I’m probably missing something.

 

 

When I went to go work there I was under the impression that It was just something that I was going to have to suffer through. But by the time I was done I had had fun. it was a good experience.

 

 

bottom of page