Our featured volunteer this month is the young chef Sam Spal, who currently is in Germany but spent many hours this year in our shop.
But Sam came to us first as a customer, and after arriving in California from the Czech Republic, purchased a klunker cruiser from us. His parents came over for a short-term work stay, and Sam and his siblings needed bikes to get around.
Sam had finished high school in the Czech Republic, and had time on his hands, and outside of riding his new bike, he came to volunteer with us, and quickly picked up many of the essential skills of a bike mechanic, often coming three days a week for four to six hours at a time.
While Sam's prized high-end full-suspension mountain bike remained over in Europe, he picked up an affordable mountain bike on his own and rode it hard on local trails.
At the beginning of summer, Sam returned back to Europe to attend culinary school. While we wanted to treat him on his last day, he instead treated us with his other craft—cooking. He brought in handmade deserts to share, turning a bittersweet day into a very sweet one.
Sam took a few minutes to answer our questions in English, despite it being his third language.
Who is Sam Spal?
Samuel Spal is a boy who likes bike riding and sport.
What keeps you coming back to volunteering at BikeX?
Friends and the fun I have there.
You've worked on a number of different bikes. What is your favorite to work on?
I like to work on mountain bikes best because I know many of them.
How is biking different here compared to the Czech Republic?
We have lot of forests there and it is not so hot there.
What can you share about your personal or family bike collection?
I can say I and my brother have mountain bikes and rest of my family has street bikes.
What have you learned since volunteering with SVBE?
I learned so many things, especially about selling the bikes and repairing them.
What's been the most interesting problem to deal with?
When I needed to change the front suspension fork on a bike.