Bike at Illinois has produced a video for 6 Basic Things to Know About Biking on Campus. Credit: Joanna Raimo (Campus Recreation)
Watch the video here: Bike at Illinois Video: 6 Basic Things to Know About Biking on Campus
Please see attached the list of avenues used to promote Bike Day 2021
All, Heck of a week we just had. Tuesday was Bike To Work Day and Light The Night; both events went well. CBC as a LTN location was not as popular as the other two spots but we are still only in our second year of offering this location; the other two spots have been there for over 10 years and have a lot more passers-by. I do appreciate the convenience of not having to go anywhere for the event, though!
BTWD was a decent turn out. We had around 30 people stop by to pick up their shirts. iSEE shot some footage for a promo video. I also talked with a few profs/pro staff folks who said this was their first bike commute, which was great. Hopefully they’ll stick with it! It also reminded me I need to brush up on my beginning commuter tips…
Our Grand Opening event was a success. We got to show off our space to quite a few people who’d never been by before and a handful of regulars that were duly impressed with the upgrade from our old space.
This week I’ve got a new student worker starting, so that will be a welcomed addition to the team. I’ll also pick up some bikes from TBP for rebuild as we’re flush out of decent Shop Builds. Demand has waned a bit or word is spreading that we’re out of bikes so fewer folks are coming by—either way, we’ll get a few more fixed up this week.
The numbers:
Visitors: TBD
Sales: $513.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $180
Memberships: 5 for $150
Tire/tubes: 6 for $19.50
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
Bike Day 2021 was organized on September 14, 2021! Here are some of the numbers from the events from Bike Day 2021.
Bike to Work Day:
Light the Night:
General feedback was very positive from the campus community members. Several mentioned that holding these events in September felt like a welcoming event and gave the returning and new students an opportunity to explore the campus and community on bike and learn about the bike program at the beginning of school year!
The Bike Month Planning team and Light the Night Planning teams are considering organizing both of these events in the fall semester going forward.
iSEE produced a video to promote Bike to Work Day and Light the Night 2021 on Tuesday, September 14, 2021.
See the video here Bike Day 2021 on September 14 - Bike to Work Day and Light the Night!
Celebrate CU Bike Day 2021
Be a part of two great upcoming bicycle events on Tuesday, September 14. You can participate, volunteer, or do both!
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign achieved the Silver-level Bicycle Friendly University status in October 2019 because of its ongoing commitment to improving bicycle education, infrastructure, and programs. Visit the Bike at Illinois website to learn more about the many efforts that support bicycling on campus.
Bike to Work Day
Champaign County Bike to Work Day returns this semester. There will be 17 welcoming stations open between 7 and 10 a.m., with nine on the Urbana campus. Grab a snack and get some free Bike at Illinois merchandise and a T-shirt! To get the free T-shirt, you must register and bring your bicycle!
Light the Night
The 14th annual Light the Night, a free bike light giveaway, will be held that evening from 4 to 7 p.m. at three locations:
Participants must bring their bicycles to receive the free light sets; lights will only be installed on bicycles without lights. Volunteers are needed in the afternoon and evening for three shifts. Fill out the volunteer sign-up form to assist. All volunteers will be required to wear face coverings during the event.
All, We’re getting legitimately busy nowadays! We’ll be keeping an eye on overall capacity and having to limit some visitors soon.
I’m scrambling to finish more bikes to capitalize on the surging demand but we’ll likely sell out this week or next.
Over the weekend we’ve gotten over 50 bike registration notifications so it’s likely we’ll see an uptick in registration pick-ups here.
We had a patron come in on Friday who’s an RA at LAR and took all of our rack card flyers to hand out to his students—hopefully that’ll bump up our applications.
The numbers:
Visitors: 41
Sales: $1,362.60
Bikes (refurb): 6 for $940
Memberships: 6 for $180
Tires/tubes: 8 for $42
U-locks: 6 or $126
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
Please see attached the final bicycle registration sign design in JPEG and PDF formats. We have received approvals from Housing to put up these signs in the major high traffic bicycle parking locations, mainly in the SDRP, LAR, FAR/PAR, and Busey Evans bicycle parking areas. We are also looking at Illini Union and ARC for these signs in this cycle, but dependent on funding.
Sarthak Prasad has submitted a work order to fabricate and install the bike registration signs at these locations (as mentioned in previous project updates). The Work Order number is 10885468.
Below are the 12 locations we can put up the signs. Additionally, after looking at you map, I agree with all the location for the signs.
Today we discussed the 10-12 location we are ready to place the bike signs once they are made. Once the work order is submitted soon, the signs will take around two weeks to produce and we are hoping to have everything, including the placement of the signs, done by early September. Currently, the cost of each sign ranges from $60-$75 with an additional $200 for installation of all signs. We hope to complete 12 signs and make more if our budget allows.
All, Steadily picking up around here. Had to pull out the folding stands on a couple occasions. Got a new hire in the works. Dates are set for Light The Night and Bike To Work Day for the fall. On Friday we had a volunteer working towards a membership, which was a welcome occurrence.
This week is business as usual.
The numbers:
Visitors: 20
Sales: $1022.10
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $500
Memberships: 5 for $150
Misc: $58.50
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center
In today’s meeting, we discussed the email we received from ARC about location and size of our signs. We are sticking with the size we discussed earlier, 12x18, and the idea is to mount them on posts. However, that will have an additional cost so the range of signs and posts we can produce will be around 10-15. That will be enough to target our priority locations. Before the next meeting with the ARC on Tuesday, we have to finalize a map with the specific locations pinpointed with images. This map will be created by Sarthak Prasad because he will be using the Bike Census information.
Please watch the meeting recording here: Combined Bike to Work Day and Light the Night meeting on June 8, 2021.
Also, attached are the meeting notes for Light the Night, agenda for this meeting, and a draft of the sponsorship/fundraising letter from Champaign County Bikes.
Today we discussed the next steps of finalizing a design for the signs and narrowing down on locations. I was tasked with prioritizing the locations. The dorms would get first priority, the other big locations got second priority (like the Union), and third priority was any other location. After we complete these two, we can get confirmation from the Architectural Review Committee.
Below, I have added the link for the map with all the locations, and a list of the location in priority order.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=17eGVN3C3A9AcW4kga0atpH0pt9NsfkyT&usp=sharing
First Priority:
Second Priority:
Third Priority:
Today we discussed the next steps in the bicycle registration project on campus. We looked at the previous design for the lawn signs, and after looking at the new ones, I was tasked with cutting some of the text and enlarging the QR Code. I will send over the file after these adjustments so the design can be uploaded on Adobe software or something similar. We are also looking forward to hearing if the signs can be metal plated instead of corrugated plastic so that they may last longer. This might be a bit more expensive, so that would mean fewer lawn signs and location. Though, there are around ten left over signs from last year. In terms of locations, I will be pinning all the locations on a Google Map to make the information more accessible. We also discussed other ways to broadcast this information and we will contact residential directors of the dorms and see if they can include information about bike registration when they welcome incoming students. Spreading the information on other social media is also an option. Lastly, we will be meeting in around two weeks to discuss where we are at and the next steps.
The SSC awarded $1,200 for the "Bike Registration Signs". This award will expire on May 14, 2022.
All, Still not steadily busy as the temps started to dip. We’ll see what this week brings.
We had our Basic Maintenance 101 class on Wednesday night. Sam held the class and we had 5 people signed up but only 1 showed. Friday Ride was a no-show except for a DI reporter who wanted to cover the event.
This week is business as usual and our Friday Ride again. I’ll scavenge some freewheels and tires/tubes off some of the junk bikes in storage at some point, too. We are desperately low on used freewheels and can’t really get any new ones due to the sustained supply shortages.
The numbers:
Visitors: 22
Sales: $664.50
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $410
Tires/tubes: 7 for $26
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
WManager, Campus Bike Center
On March 2, 2019, SSC voted to approve the scope change to extend the project's timeline to Summer 2020 and to use a third party vendor instead of students.
See the SSC Scope Change: Bicycle Registration and RFID Tracking Program
Files associated with Bike Registration.
All, Last Wednesday we had our first class of the semester: Bike Maintenance 101. We had one attendee, despite the bitter cold and snow, which was great. He seemed genuinely appreciative of the BC and our mission. We were able to use his bike as a tutorial of sorts for some of the basic repairs.
We had a new-to-the-university student come in on Thursday who has a strong bike interest and background. He expressed interest in volunteering and becoming more involved—always a welcomed response!
On Friday I grabbed 4 bikes from the warehouse and we will work those up this week. The cold and snow will keep things nice and quiet here, I’m sure.
The numbers:
Visitors: 5
Sales: $262
Bike (refurb): 1 for $200
Membership: 1 for $30
Misc: $31
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager
Please see attached the SSC semesterly report for "Bicycle Registration and RFID Tracking Program" project from fall 2020.
