VOLUNTEER and an EVENT: UVM Bike Users Group and Local Motion’s Cycle the City Ride (Sunday, 4/28)

Howdy UVM Bike Enthusiasts,

We know you haven’t heard from us at the Bike Users Group in a while. We’ve been busy planning and scheming new projects and are now starting to shake off the wintertime rust. In keeping with tradition, we will be hosting our biannual Dr Your Bike & Discount Helmet Sale next week on Tuesday, April 23rd from 11:30 – 3:30. See the attached flyer (also below) for more details and we hope to see you there. Directly following our event will be a book talk by Luis Vivanco, our esteemed faculty adviser, who will be discussing his recently published Reconsidering the Bicycle: An Anthropological Perspective on a New (Old) Thing. His talk and a celebration of the book’s release will take place at 4:00 in the John Dewey Lounge in Old Mill. We highly encourage you to attend.

If you’re interested in hearing more about what we’ve been up to and what we’ve got in store (oh, just a few little things like the Bike Education Center we will be opening as a student-run workshop this coming Fall, no big deal), then keep reading below the poster.

So let’s talk about the bikeshare. Y’all may have noticed its absence on campus this semester. That’s because we are preparing a much-needed overhaul of our entire system, one that will make our admittedly unwieldy and cantankerous system into one that is much more user-friendly for us, you, and the front desk staff who help it run. Come this fall, the bikeshare will be run on a new system that will greatly streamline the process of signing a bike out and will allow you to check bike availability online.

Are you a resident of Redstone or Trinity? If so, be sure to check out the brand new Dero fixit stations that just appeared outside a dorm near you. Thanks to the generous support of UVM Transportation & Parking Services, these stands and their complement of tools are now there for your personal use in maintaining and repairing your own rides on your home turf.

Alright, here’s the big one — we have a new space: The BUG Bike Education Center. Thanks again to our ongoing collaboration with Transportation & Parking Services director Jim Barr, we now have an established spot in the Hills building where students will be able to work on bikes and become versed in the arts of their repair and maintenance. Our grand opening will be this Fall. If you have previous experience with bike repair, we need you! Email us at bug@uvm.edu if you are interested in volunteering with us in our new space. Besides the golden opportunity to share your expertise with your fellow students, we can offer you access to a fully equipped workshop and provide you with additional mechanic training. If you don’t have previous mechanic experience, but still want to help us make this project into a thriving campus bike hub, email us anyway! We would love to know how! you want to be involved and what you can contribute.

Last, but not least, we cordially invite you to join us for Local Motion’s Cycle the City Ride on Sunday, April 28th. The ride will be a pleasurable 10-mile jaunt on the retooled Cycle the City bike route, complete with an on-the-ride historical tour of our beloved Queen City. The ride starts at Maglianero Cafe — meet at 9 AM, ride at 10. The attached flyer has more deets.

That about wraps it up folks. Keep an ear to the ground — you’ll hear from us again this Fall. If you have questions, suggestions, or anything else, don’t hesitate to contact us. Though this is the last time you’ll be hearing from me, we have a solid crew chomping at the bit to keep things rolling. It’s been a pleasure.

pedal on,
Jens, Lucy, & the UVM Bike Users Group (BUG) — Jordan, Dana, Lex, Doug, Darya, Brian, Madeleine, Lida, & Rachel

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