All, Lovely summery weather last week!
Main event for the week was a marketing meeting to discuss new and innovative ways to promote the Bike Center, which was fruitful and really put into perspective how much stuff we do here at CBC when explaining it, even in general terms. And things like build-a-bikes vs. refurbished vs. DIY repairs will always confuse the uninitiated.
This week is business as usual. Bikes to be picked up from Parking, an Active Transportation Advisory Committee meeting, staff meetings to be scheduled, and so forth. Some suppliers seem to be restocked a bit on some much-needed bike parts but as we inch ever-closer to fall/winter, immediate demand for those parts will wane. But we’ll still stock up a bit.
The numbers:

Visitors: 12
Sales: $226.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $200
Misc: $26.50

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

Attached are the meeting minutes and chat from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 10/30.

Discussed were the following topics:

• Air Travel Emissions Offsetting
• Campus Master Plan
• Campus Bike Plan
• Fleet Replacement Plans
• Reduce Driving on Campus and SOVs
• Commuter Program

All,

Pretty slow week. Had the iCAP sustainability celebration on Tuesday, which was great. Always fun to see/hear from other parts of campus that are working towards a better future for our campus. On the flipside, I had the displeasure of reporting a dangerous F&S driver that same day and then a dangerous MTD driver on Thursday.

Todd came by and cleared out scrap on Friday which was welcomed.

As of this morning, I communicated with Working Bikes that we will not be doing our annual abandoned bike donation as Parking did not collect bikes last spring, due to COVID, and thus we have no bikes to donate to them. It hasn’t been decided/communicated whether Parking will collect later in the fall/winter or wait until spring. This will also negatively affect how many bikes we’ll have for sale next spring, as the pool of available bikes is lower. But of course, most of the abandoned bikes were being donated and for sale numbers were always more dependent on our ability/time to build more than a dearth of bikes.

The numbers:
Visitors: 11 (7 UIUC-affiliated)
Sales: $225
Memberships: 4 for $120
Misc parts: 8 for $55

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

Sarthak Prasad met with Shayna Talpallikar to discuss her proposal to promote bicycle registration on campus. Bicycle Registraiton has been mandatory for years, as explained in the University Bicycle Ordinance, and the university should promote it more like that. There is a new national registration system, with a one-time $10 registration fee, and it is available to all - students, faculty, staff, alumni (in C-U area), departmental bicycles, as well as the residents of Urbana, Champaign, Savoy, or any other Champaign County residents.

Shayna expressed interest in helping us out with this project and how we can achieve it. We discussed two main ideas, and thought adding signage to major bicycle parking areas to be the best option right now. Another option was to have Bicycle Registration days or events across campus where we give out free donuts and raffle option to those who register. However, this idea was discouraged due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please see attached some notes from the meeting. A recording of the meeting is also available.

All,

Mike, a semi-regular at the old shop, walked in on Friday for his appointment, looked around and said, “What’d you have to do to get upgraded to such a nice spot?”

Just another positive review of our new space.

I coordinated with Parking to do more frequent pick ups—but smaller loads—of abandoned bikes, which should allow for a better flow of bikes in and out of the bike center. This should be more manageable for myself and my staff going forward, as well.

This week is a Campus Sustainability Celebration on Tuesday, a CBC staff meeting Wednesday evening, and warm weather to close out the week, which usually equals some more traffic, but we’ll see if that holds during a pandemic.

The numbers:

Visitors: 14
Sales: $178.20
Memberships: 4 for $120
Misc parts: 4 for $40

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

Attached are the meeting minutes from the 10/16 meeting.

Discussed were the following:

AmpUp Demo

All,

Last week I had an epiphany that we should probably have a sign on the door that lists our hours, even if they are appointment only. That’s in the works, should be ready tomorrow.

With the decrease in testing for grad/staff we’ve had to turn a few people away for not being up-to-date. They have, by and large, been totally understanding. A few people have emailed and canceled ahead of time, which is welcomed.

Set up a secondary pegboard in the shop to better organize freewheel/cassette tools—it’s a vast improvement over the drawer and/or coffee can we’d been using before. Last week I grabbed the scrap metal bin, some miscellaneous parts, and Aquaham Lincoln. He’ll live atop the fridge.

This week I’ll coordinate with Parking to pick up a few bikes—only space for 3 or so—for instructional/teaching purposes with the new hires, schedule a staff meeting for my team, finalize placement for wheel hooks around the shop to increase storage.

The numbers:

Visitors: 12
Sales: $747
Memberships: 4 for $120
Refurb bike: 2 for $430
Tire/tubes: 10 for $57

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

Please see attached the list of avenues used to promote Light the Night event.

Please see attached.