FRANKIE HINDS
Frankie Hinds—the Pinelands Creative Workshop lead bike
mechanic—was a latecomer to the Pinelands bike project, but it would appear
that he was destined for it from early childhood. A resident since age 6 of Pinelands, a
low-income area in Barbados, Frankie took early to bicycles, inspired by a
cycling uncle. From his uncle, Frankie
got his first bike at age 11--a hand-me-down Raleigh—and rode it constantly.
In a short time, his uncle taught him some basic skills,
working on derailleurs and shifters, and then—noticing some precocious
talent—challenged him to true his road bike wheels. “I told him he’s crazy,” said Frankie, but
his uncle started at the beginning, teaching him “how to spoke it”,
constructing a wheel from scratch. In so
doing, Frankie absorbed the underlying numeric logic of spoke interaction. After all, “it’s a question of numbers.”
Soon Frankie was truing wheels for friends in the
Pinelands area. He recalls his early
days, working with bikes that were so oxidized that when truing a wheel using
his thumb as a gauge, the rust on the rim would wear down his thumbnail.
Bikes for the World bikes, at least, don’t put his
thumbnails to the test on a daily basis.
However, they do often require some work. To satisfy local tastes, he modifies “drop
bar” road bikes, substituting straight handlebars and new brake
assemblies. Although the conditions
under which Frankie labors are not always the best, he generally converts each
bike in the space of 15 or 20 minutes. His
small workspace is generally crowded with bikes, and lacking a truing stand or
work stand with clamp, he must hang a bike by its seat on a strap from the
ceiling. Unsteady, but functional,
permitting him to stand and use both hands.
Frankie did not come
straight from the schoolyard to the bike shop, however. On leaving school, Frankie became
interested in Rastafarianism and organic foods, selling natural fruit juices as a micro business. However, the competition for space in his
mother’s kitchen limited his volume and ability to earn a living—a recipe for
frustration. Even with a small loan from
the Pinelands micro-credit program, the business simply could not grow.
In early 2001, with the growth of the Pinelands bike
project, an opportunity came for him to work in the shop. Frankie began truing wheels at Pinelands on a
part-time basis, and when the regular mechanic resigned to take a job outside
the cycling profession, Frankie stepped up and took his place.
Not only did Frankie have a natural mechanical talent, but
he found helping others fulfilling.
There was “always a joy to it.” A
neighbor or a customer would bring a bike in bad shape, Frankie would work on
it, and “when it leaves, you got it riding perfect.”
Frankie brings this philosophy to his own bike, converting
an old Schwinn one-speed cruiser into a sturdy six-speed mountain bike, with a
large basket able to carry his tools to and from work.
With four 40’ container shipments and approximately 1700
bikes annually, Frankie is able to handle the bike assembly and reconditioning
needs of the project with the part-time mechanic assistance of his friend Clyne
Alleyne. On an informal basis, customers
and young people from the neighborhood hang around and clean bikes. (Pinelands once tried to start a training
program, but the first student came one day, and failed to come back the
next. Frankie laments that bike repair
service, in this throw-away society, is “a dying trade”.)
While working with bikes and helping customers ride them is
personally fulfilling and pays a modest salary, Frankie has other things that
are important to him. He and his girl
friend have just built the shell of their new home and, once they install
electricity, they plan to dedicate Sundays to cooking and selling soy-based
food products, reflecting their personal values, their enjoyment of each
other’s company, and—hopefully—to supplement their family income. A steady job at Pinelands frees Frankie to
experiment and take risks.
With
these problems in mind, Koji and the community’s water committee began a
year-long process of petitioning help from local NGOs. In February 2012, they
finally succeeded with the signing of a bilateral agreement between the NGO World Vision and the local municipal
government, promising $80,000 in funding to upgrade the water collection
system, tank, and network. With the support of over 3,000 hours of organized
labor provided by the members of Los Limones and detailed blueprints from
students at the University of El
Salvador-San Miguel, construction is nearly 90% complete as of November
2012.
