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Project Updates for collection: Bicycle Related Projects

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  2. Veoride is coming to town

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bike Share with Veo

    "URBANA — With agreements almost finalized, VeoRide is set to become the first dockless-bike-share service in Champaign-Urbana.

    Lily Wilcock, active transportation coordinator at the University of Illinois, said the Indiana-based company gave her serial numbers for 500 bicycles — the biggest fleet size allowed. The goal, she said, is to roll them out around the start of the semester...."

    http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2018-08-16/c-us-first-shareable-b...

  3. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,

    Last week was a whirlwind of cleaning and reorganizing. On Monday afternoon a large dumpster was dropped off and on Tuesday a bunch of new furniture and cabinets came. The old furniture and cabinets went into the dumpster and the new stuff has been put in its place. On Friday a new big metal work table was dropped off to replace the smaller, broken, and less effective one. Overall, the shop is still in progress but will look a lot better shortly. Unfortunately, on Friday and over the weekend, we got 4 more bike donations, which is counterproductive as far as a clean shop is concerned but they’re good bikes that we can get

    In moving some of the computer stuff to the new desk some cables got plugged in incorrectly and this caused a major headache for the IT dept and the Bike Project. A large thanks to Barry and the two guys from F&S IT who helped right the ship.  

     

    Despite the continued construction on Pennsylvania, we were jam-packed for an hour on Thursday. We still haven’t been so busy as to require the suspension of the Free Visit policy. I’ll gauge how busy it is today and go from there.

     

    Last week I ordered the lights for LTN 2018. They should be here Wednesday.

     

    This week I will finish up the dumpster-required work and spiffy up some more. We’re starting to sell bikes on the regular and thusly stock is starting to dwindle (this is good!)  so I’ll finish up a few more shop builds this week, too.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 65

    Sales: $1,056.25

    Memberships: 7 for $210
    Bikes (refurb): 3 for $455
    Tire/tubes: 12 for $73

    Thanks!

     

    Jake Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  4. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week seemed to pick up towards the end of the week. We had to herd people out of the shop at 5:30. Even with the street closure, people are managing to find us. I’ve taken the sandwich board sign off the trike and placed it next to the garage door facing east since most of our traffic is coming from that side nowadays. I’ll reconstruct the trike and start using it again once Pennsylvania is reopened.

     

    This week I’ll be bringing the student staff in during the mornings to help clean and purge since we’ll be getting a pan dumpster and some new furniture. The disruption won’t affect open hours, as most of the cleaning will be in the back end of the shop anyway. We’ve got a dumpster here until Friday, so the staff and I should be able to concentrate all the cleaning to the mornings and have things back to functional order in time for open hours.

     

    I think either this week or next I will be suspending First Visit Free. This past week it was already affecting usage/stand availability for members. I’ll put a bulletin on the Bike Project website alerting people to that fact when I institute it.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 79

    Sales: $468.00

    Memberships: 2 for $60.
    Bikes (Refurb): 1 for $170
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $56
    Tire/tubes: 10 for $50

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  6. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, had a strong and busy finish to the end of last week. I think the student population is making its way back in advance of the new academic year.

     

    Last week I ordered the light sets for Light The Night, although a snag has just been brought to my attention. I spoke to the customer service representative at Dero on Friday and beyond his giddy reaction to the squirrel problem, he told me that they have on-order a new all-metal pump head that will withstand all the abuse (and squirrels) that our campus can muster.

     

    This week is a TBP Members’ Meeting. I’ll also work on resolving the issue with the Light The Night order, scrap more bikes in advance of the Big Clean as well as begin rounding up some volunteers to help out for the event.

     

    The numbers:
    Visitors: 87

    Memberships: 5 for $150

    Bikes (refurb): 2 for $330
    Bikes (B-a-B): 2 for $105
    Tire/tubes: 6 for $29

     

    Sincerely,

    Jake Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  7. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week was slow, for the most part. Felt like we got a lot of donations. Trained a new staffer, waiting on clearance to train one more. Still building and scrapping bikes on the regular. My checklist sheet for shop builds is working—for the most part. There are still detail things that the staff don’t really notice, a slack chain on a single-speed for example, or cable ends are too long. Overall, I think it’s helping but the details matter and very much can still result in an unsafe bicycle. I’ll look at revising it a bit this w eek.

    This will be Dennis’s last week here (I think, will check on this). He has been a great staffer and we’ll miss him!

     

    This week I will begin prep for our big clean out/purge at the beginning of August. I’ll poll the staff for availability and iron out the details for how many days we’ll be closed (best-case scenario: one day). We’ll begin August 6th. We’ll be pulling all the bikes out and moving furniture around to give a solid, deep clean, and toss out the junk that has accumulated. We haven’t ever done a big clean like this during my tenure here and it’s wholly overdue. While we might lose a day or two of open hours, the end result will be a better functioning and cleaner/easier to navigate space.

     

    This week I will also be getting in touch with Lexco about ordering PB Blinky lights for LTN 2018!

    Numbers:

    Visitors: 75
    Sales: $724
    Memberships: 7 for $210

    Bikes (refurb): 2 for $220
    Tire/tubes: 11 for $88

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  8. archived info - previous project description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bike Sharing

    The University has been approached many times by students and others about the possibility of implementing a bike sharing program, and the 2010 iCAP included a goal to create a bike sharing program by 2012.

    The University conducted a feasibility study in 2011 and 2012 (attached below) to assess whether the campus could truly sustain a bicycle sharing program. That study recommended the Campus Bike Plan be implemented first, in order to improve the conditions of bicycle infrastructure across campus, before a public bike sharing system be considered.  In Fall 2013, it was decided that there have been improvements made on the bicycle network so bike sharing was reopened for discussion.  A graduate student was hired to work with departments in trying to implement a bike share within the University, while creating discussion within the local community about a community wide system.

    In addition, the study also suggests a few interim programs to serve known needs of providing bicycles to University employees for work-related trips on an hourly basis, and providing bikes to visitors, conferences and classes for daily rentals for group tours, etc. The University is working to develop both of these programs now, and will continue to explore options for making communal bicycles available to students and potentially to the general public. 

    Background

    Although the community bike sharing costs too much, which means community bike sharing is not feasible in the recent years; some departments have developed their own bike sharing programs, staffs and students can rent a bike daily, monthly, even yearly. It is really convenient and increases the usage rate of bike around the campus. Now, a promotional campaign is being conducted to encourage more departments to participate, with the goal of increasing the number of departmental shared bikes from the current level of 15 to a goal of 60 by FY20. Additionally, campus still continue to work with community partners to explore the implementation of a communitywide public bike-sharing program.

    Minnesota has a nice ride which sharing bike among all people. It started from 2012 and since 2014, the cumulative trip exceeds 500,000 per year, whose net assets are $62,469 in 2015, which means with the contract, sponsor and rental fee, there is not much economic stress. Maybe in the next several years, it will work for us, too.

  10. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, a nice and generally manageable number of visitors to the shop this week. 2-3 people working on shop builds and some fix-a-flatters in every day.

    I rode down Green St last week and that was a delight. Great new markings!

    Thanks to Todd for grabbing the scrap pile over the weekend.

    This week I will be contacting the Dero bike pump people about the problem with the Altgeld pump: squirrels keep chewing off the pump head, rendering it unusable. I’ll check with them to see if they’ve got any solutions.

    I will also be setting up a meeting this week with a student group who are looking to solve bike waste on campus.


    Numbers:

    Visitors: 88
    Sales: $777.45
    Bike (refurb): 1 for $160
    Bike (B-a-B): 2 for $158
    Memberships: 3 for $90
    Tire/tubes: 23 for $123

     

    Sincerely,

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  11. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, pretty relaxed week here. The construction on Pennsylvania is in full swing and will probably adversely affect how many visitors we get but we’ll see. If the main door is completely or even mostly inaccessibly, a lot more people will be using the back garage door that we open for air flow. In that case, I’ll reorganize the shop to accommodate for that. All told, we’ll probably miss some visitor sign-ins because of it. But I’ll play it by ear and see how people navigate i t.  

    On Monday morning last week I had three folks come in who are going on a mission trip with their church to Malawi, Africa and hoping to teach some bike skills over there. I showed them some basic repairs and gave them some old parts/tools that they could use and advised against buying expensive and specific tools. Their trip is annual so they’ll check back next year.


    I’ve got another interview for a student worker today.

     

    On Friday alone we got like 5 bikes donated. Nice old 3 speeds (like we need more). This morning I arrived to find 3 Walmarters donated in front of the garage. I’ll pull and scrap a few more to even it out.

     

    The numbers:
    Sales: $1,173.25
    Memberships: 5 for $150
    Bikes (refurbished): 4 for $695
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $57
    Tire/tubes: 10 for $87

    Sincerely,

     

    Jake Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  12. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, pretty much same old, same old over here this past week. Sold some bikes, people are coming in with a little more frequency. Donations are still coming in faster than I can strip them, as almost all of them are not worth fixing. Volunteers fell off a little for last week, only had a few come by. The Bike Project and I had a meeting to discuss nuts and bolts of operations here. We tentatively scheduled meetings for every two weeks.

     

    This week I hope to schedule another training with another new staffer if his schedule allows. I’ll also keep culling bikes and building up new ones, per usual. The student staff have requested a template/checklist for bike builds that is a little more in depth than the current tag system checklist and separate from our Shop Build/B-a-B Safety Check form to help them learn the ropes better. I’ll work on a little mock-up for that this week as well.  

     

    The numbers:
    Visitors: 84
    Sales: $1,306.00
    Memberships: 6 for $180
    Bikes (refurb): 6 for $1,000
    B-a-B: 1 for $25
    Tire/tube: 13 for $69

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  13. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week was hot but we survived. A few storms broke up the extreme heat, thankfully. Other than that, it was business as usual. All-stands-full for a few days last week. We had a nice line on Friday but the crazy storm also penned everyone inside the shop while they waited it out. I’ve hired two more student workers and working on a third. I’ll train them this week. We’ve had a lot of volunteers in lately, and one especially eager volunteer wants to come almost every day all summer. Yikes.

     

    Thanks again to Todd for picking up the scrap pile over the weekend. I’m trying to stay ahead of the donations, as far as how many bikes we’ve got in here. As we sell more, that will help, but we’ve still got more bikes than is probably necessary or safe.

     

    This week I’ll be focusing on setting up some volunteer tasks as we have had multiple volunteers per day in over the last week or so, burning through some of my go-to tasks. I’ll work on minute organization tasks and maybe overhauling hubs/wheels. As mentioned I’ll be training new staff this week as well.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 93
    Sales:  $849

    Memberships: 11 for $330
    Bikes (refurb): 1 for $135

    Tires/tubes: 18 for $124

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  14. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week was fairly busy. Not swamped but steady. Felt like business was picking up and the numbers bear that out. Last week Joel and Alana dropped off a new mat and new cleaning supplies. (Thanks, guys!)

    This week, I’ve got two interviews for new student worker help. I may end up closing shop for a couple days this week as the temps creep above 90° and become dangerously hot. Last week people were complaining about the heat and it was only in the mid-80s in here. I’ll fill up the water jug with ice water and have cups on hand.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 69

    Sales: $1,840.75

    Bikes (refurb): 5 for $865
    Bikes (B-a-B): 2 for $242
    Memberships: 8 for $240

    Tire/tubes: 9 for $49

     

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  15. Plans underway for September 2018 event

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    We have decided on the original two locations:

    • Illinois and Lincoln
    • Alma Mater

    Date agreed upon was Thursday, September 20, 2018. 4:30 – 7:00 PM.

     

    Light selection is half Planet Bike Blinky sets and half silicone–wrap sets. MTD will be ordering $3,000 of the silicone lights and TBP will, with their approval, order $3000 of PB Blinky sets.

     

    With the speed of distribution last year the stations ran out of lights before the end of the event. This year we will not need the reflector station.

     

    F&S would like to see if we can set-up the event to spend some time talking to the recipient of lights about bike safety and/or do an ABC Quick Check before we install the lights.

  16. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week picked up a little. We had a couple days there of pretty steady busyness. Summer weather’ll do that!

    I’ve hired two new student workers for the summer, which is a start, but will need to hire a few more in time for the Fall semester once Evan, Dennis, and Lucas move on.

     

    I dropped off a stack of quarter sheet flyers at Champaign Cycle over the weekend, much to their delight, so we’ll have a little more exposure in the wider off-campus community.

     

    This week I’ll continue processing the bikes donated from Champaign Cycle’s Community Bike Sale. I’ll do final safety inspections on the half dozen or so bikes that are almost ready for sale. Additionally, I’ll begin training the new student staffers.

    Numbers:

    Visitors: 87
    Sales: $598.20
    Bike (refurb): 1 for $110
    Memberships: 3 for $90
    Tires/tubes: 9 for $49

     

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  17. dockless bike sharing article

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bike Sharing
    Bike Share with Veo

    http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2018-05-07/ui-officials-working-incentives-keep-shared-bikes-populated-areas.html

    UI officials working on incentives to keep shared bikes in populated areas

     

    Mon, 05/07/2018 - 5:37pm | Tim Ditman  

    CHAMPAIGN — As a dockless-bike-sharing program inches closer to reality in Champaign-Urbana, University of Illinois officials are working on an incentive program to ensure more bikes rented on campus stay in populated areas.

    The concept, in general, allows people to rent bikes anywhere in town rather than at a fixed location. The two cities and the UI are working on an intergovernmental agreement to have mostly the same rules.

    Lily Wilcock, active transportation coordinator for the UI, said the campus's rules will require the bikes to be returned to a rack so as not to block sidewalks or entrances to buildings, and the UI is working with bike-share companies to make that easier.

    "One of the concerns we had as the University of Illinois was, what do you do if someone just rides it to their house and then they leave it there?" Wilcock said. "Some of the companies have responded to that, in that they've been using in other cities an incentive program. They've been allowing someone to ride the bus out to an area to get the bicycle, and then they get a free ride back to leave it in a more populated area. ... And then they get incentives like a certain amount of ride credit."

    Wilcock said a dockless-bike-sharing system could launch on campus in the fall.

  18. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    C-U Bike to Work Day
    Encourage Active Transportation

    All, last Tuesday was BIKE TO WORK DAY! It was great! Great weather, great turnout, great conversation, great blindingly bright Vision Zero t shirts. I even sold some tubes and lights here at the Bike Center during the event and helped with some minor tune-ups. Peak times—no surprise—was 8:30 – 9am. After that a few stragglers hung around until  l0.

     

    On Saturday we had the Bike Rodeo at the ARC parking lot. While we didn’t have the huge turnout we were hoping for, the event ran really smoothly and we were able to educate and teach a lot about bike safety and bike-handling skills. Nothing beats showing a kid who’s barely taller than a bike pump how to air up their tires. Needless to say, that was a team effort.


    This week will be a major shop clean and purge as we’ve received another 8 or so bikes from Champaign Cycle that are on-the-whole quality bikes that need somewhere to be stored. And last week with the doors open a lot of leaves and debris got blown into the shop, so that’ll all need cleaning up as well.

     

    Numbers:

    Visitors: 70
    Sales: $828.60
    Bikes (refurb): 1 for $160
    Memberships: 5 for $150
    Tire/tube: 16 for $89

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  19. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, it’s almost BIKE MONTH! Tomorrow is BTWD! Student staff and I will be running the event, which promises—at this point—to be fantastic weath er.

     

    Last week was slightly abridged since I took Monday off. Hours ran smoothly without me. The remaining days were a healthy amount of busy but skewed towards slow overall. This week looks to be warmer.

    I taught a class at ARC on Tuesday night. 10 people showed up, one of whom came to the Bike Center the next day and declared, “Your class inspired me to try to repair my own bike”. Couldn’t have hoped for a better result!

     

    On Friday I interviewed two new student workers that I will be hiring. They’re both freshman, which provides me with ample time to mold them into expert bicycle helpers--and they were willing to stick it out through some tough, frustrating hub repairs I had them do. Elsewhere on the staffing front, Leah will be leaving us for the greener pastures of Cunningham Children’s Home in the next week or two. Shean will follow sometime after graduation, I believe. They’ve both been great employees; they’ll be missed around here.

     

    Numbers:

    Sales: $296.50
    Memberships: 4 for $120
    Tire/tube: 6 for $50

    No B-a-B or refurbished sales

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

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