Ashland-based United Bicycle Institute (UBI) is now open for registrations at their new Portland campus.
UBI has been remodeling an existing building at N. Williams and Shaver in North Portland since they signed the lease back in May. Today I spoke with UBI owner Ron Sutphin. Ron said that their first class — a two-week course in “Professional Repair and Shop Operation” — will begin on September 28th.
UBI plans to teach several more sessions of this class, as well as two sessions of its “Introduction to Bicycle Maintenance” by the end of 2009. Frame building classes aren’t slated to be offered at the Portland campus until mid-2010.
But before local aspiring shop managers and mechanics get a crack at the new Portland campus, it will open for a group of bike-mounted U.S. Border Patrol agents who will take a special training course. As the only bicycle-related vocational school in the country that has official sanction from the Department of Homeland Security (a requisite post 9/11), Sutphin says he’s getting more interest from the feds. “We’ve had a lot of interest from the Secret Service too.”
You can register for the course and learn more at BikeSchool.com.