All, Business as usual last week. The Scottish dude finished his build-a-bike. He only came in, too, because his German friend did a B-a-B as well and talked it up. Nothing beats good word of mouth. He was positively giddy about the whole thing and never got discouraged or frustrated by the process. The highlight for me was bending back a canti brake boss using the hole in the end of a crescent wrench. It’s not perfect but it’s functional enough. That’d make a good motto for us.
I’ll head to the warehouse this week to grab a few more bikes. I’ll also schedule a couple training sessions with my staff to refresh on some repair basics .

The numbers:
Sales: $428.50
Bike (refurb): 1 for $180
Bike (B-a-B): 1 for $30
Memberships: 3 for $90
Tires/tubes: 4 for $17

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Attended by: Sarthak Prasad (organizer, F&S), Morgan White (F&S), Stacey DeLorenzo (F&S), Marty Paulins (Parking), Gary Williamson (Parking), Bryan Johnson (Housing), Barbara Robbins (UIPD), Tara Hurless (UIPD), Jake Benjamin (Campus Bike Center), Alana Harris (called in, Campus Rec), John Lantz (called-in, Office of the Dean of Students), Ben LeRoy (City of Champaign), Lily Wilcock (City of Urbana), Jeff Yockey (Champaign County Bikes), Donna Williams (Called-in, Project 529)

Sarthak Prasad organized this meeting on January 31st from 2-3 pm to discuss Bicycle Registration using Project 529. We started off with the introductions, and Sarthak briefly explained the agenda for this meeting.

We talked about the current bicycle registration system for the University and both the cities, and the need to bring a new registration system to the university and the community. City of Urbana has a paper based bicycle registration system and City of Champaign does not currently have a bicycle registration program. We discussed the potential benfits for having Project 529 as the national bike registry vendor. Some of these benefits include:

• Project 529 is a National Bike Registry with nearly 1.5 million bicycles registered
• Bike theft recovery
• Consolidated system - one system for all
• Bicycle safety and enforcement
• Gather numbers
• Ability to send push notification - information on street/sidewalk/bike path closure, information on bicycle events in the community
• Information on any group rides in the community
• Project 529 will help enter the serial numbers in their system for the impounded bicycles or during bicycle round-up
• Admins can contact the users using the unique Shield number

Following this, Sarthak talked about the costs that will be incurred to bring this system, and went over the Quote (attached) with the group. We (university) have started the Purchase Order process, and is in progress. To start with, the University will pay the entire quoted amount (including the Secondary accounts) to bring the system here. Sarthak has asked the Cities to contribute the Secondary Account funds. This system will also include the Village of Savoy, but since the population is much less compared to the University and the cities, Project 529 will not charge a Secondary Account fee for Savoy. This will mean that there can be administrators from the University, Urbana, Champaign, and Savoy. These admins will have access to the program (not separarte programs for each unit).

The University is also considering adding a $10 registration fee, but we trying to get approvals on that. The funds from this registration fee will go towards the bicycle programs in the university and community. Sarthak, Morgan, and Stacey will discuss with the Cities on how to distribute the funds.

Facilites & Services Transportation Demand Management (F&S TDM) at the University is purchasing the Community Plan from Project 529, and will lead this project. We would appreciate the support from all of departments involved.

Sarthak briefly explained the implementation plan, which is to launch a Pilot program immediately after the Spring Break, look for what works and what needs work, right up a report by the end of June, and launch the program to the public starting in July 2020. Following this, Donna from Project 529 briefly explained how the system works and some of the existing features. We also discussed how to add new features as well.

In the final 15 minutes, we asked Project 529 some questions about their system.

Ben LeRoy and Lily Wilcock will get back to Sarthak Prasad about funding the Secondary Accounts fee.

All, Slow and steady for the week on the whole. Anecdotally busy again for this time of year. Still gearing up and/or down for moving shop, depending on how you think of it.
We’ve got our first fix-a-flat class of the semester coming up this Friday from 11am – 12p.  Today’s warm weather projects a busy shop this afternoon but I’ve given up trying to predict how busy it’ll be. I’ll also be hiring two new student staffers this week with a third interview to schedule.
The numbers:
Visitors: 61
Sales: $651
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $430
Memberships: 3 for $90
Tires/tubes: 8 for $31

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

All, First week of the semester is in the books! We were busy at times, and characteristically slow for the majority of the week. Sold a few bikes.

This week I’ve got another interview and hopefully it’ll work out so we can get our staff numbers back up. I’ll probably make a run to the warehouse to pick up a few more bikes since we’re out of B-a-B candidates/shop builds and a run to Urbana to drop off excess stock in advance of moving.

The numbers:

Visitors: 56

Sales: $478.50

Bikes (refurb): 2 for $305

Memberships: 1 for $30

Tire/tubes: 3 for $11

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

All, Last week we reopened for 2020! Although, by the count of visitors and sales, you’d hardly know it. The junky weather never helps. This week projects to be a little warmer today and tomorrow, at least. We’ll see what happens next week when school starts back up.
We currently have 2 – 3 bikes left in the shop that are not either for sale, being built up, earmarked for other projects, or junk not worth keeping.

This week I’ll be working on scheduling my student staff for open hours shifts as well as our extracurricular events/programs like our fix-a-flat classes, etc. I’ll also be coordinating with Parking to get at least a few potential Build-a-Bikes in here for next week in case anybody wants to give that a whirl. And, of course, throwing old junk out.

Numbers:
Visitors: 17
Sales: $12

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

All, It felt surprisingly busy in the shop at times last week. Our staff is dwindling with the end of the semester. We’ve reached the time of year where people bring their bikes in to the shop simply to thaw out. This week will be worse yet with the snow today.

This week’ll be more of the regular: building bikes, piling stuff up to throw away or donate to the Urbana shop. We’re closing this Friday, the 20th and will reopen on the 6th of January.
Thanks to Todd for picking up scrap over the weekend.

Numbers:
Visitors: 49
Sales: $231.50
Memberships: 2 for $60

Tires/tubes: 9 for $63

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

All, Looking back to the week before Thanksgiving break, it was about average for this time of year. Not a whole lot to report. Still throwing stuff away as we see fit. Bikes are getting built. One of the student staff put in her resignation as she’s received an internship with iSEE. Always nice to see success for the students here!

This week we’ll host our Fix-a-Flat class on Friday, Dec 6th at 11am here at the Bike Center. Likely to be poorly attended since it’s December. Otherwise, it’s more of the same: building bikes, cleaning shop, throwing stuff away.
The numbers:

Visitors: 66

Sales: $231.50
Memberships: 2 for $60
Tires/tubes: 9 for $75

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Ben Thomas from VeoRide presented an update on the dockless bike share program to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) on November 19, 2019.

All, Last week was uneventful. Without traffic during hours we were afforded a lot of quality sorting/scrapping time.
On Wednesday I met with F&S, Urbana/Champaign, and CCB to discuss Bike Month/BTWD planning and to reflect on this year’s Light The Night. We’ve set the date for Bike To Work Day as Friday, May 1st.
Thursday was our Fix-a-Flat class that was a no-show unfortunately. However, it’s pretty much winter so attendance was expected to be low.
Big news for this week is that we’ll be hosting Working Bikes again this year to help us alleviate our abandoned bikes problem. They’ll be down this Friday from about 11am – 2pm packing up bikes to take back with them to Chicago. TBP and I will be there on Wednesday to clear out the good ones. I’ve got a couple staffers who said they’re available to help but I’ll put the word out with TBP to see if we can stir up some more volunteers. The more the merrier!
The numbers:
Visitors: 67
Sales: 171.50
Bike (B-a-B): 2 for $65
Memberships: 2 for $60
Tire/tubes: 1 for $5

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center