Winter Bike to Work Day
On February 10th, UVM Bikes! held an open house in their new property on South Williams Street. The event drew in around 20-30 people, including UVM students, Champlain College students, and Burlington residents who were welcomed with hot coffee, bagels and donuts. A few lucky winners also went home with prizes from the raffle that was held.
UVM Bikes! is a volunteer-run bike shop who provides bike parts at price; meaning you do not pay any extra for labor, or storage of your bike. Additionally, unlike most conventional bike shops, at UVM Bikes! you are taught how to fix the problems with your bike, so that in the future you do not need to go to a bike shop and pay for fixable issues.
For those who are interested in being part of UVM Bikes!, you can reach the club through Instagram, or by visiting the house in person. Volunteers seem to be needed, because as I learned through talking to some affiliates of UVM Bikes, the house has not been open for this whole semester. It is important to note that volunteers of UVM Bikes do not need to know everything there is to know about bikes. Just like customers at UVM Bikes!, new volunteers can be taught and trained to fix bikes, so expertise on bikes is not required to join as a volunteer.
The issue of the house not being open, and many issues like it, lead to questions about how accessible biking is as an alternative method of transportation over automobiles here in Burlington.
To bring to light some of these issues, I talked to a Burlington resident and UVM faculty member, Richard Watts, who is personally familiar with biking throughout Burlington and on UVM campus. The first issue he had directly pertained to the fact that UVM Bikes! has been closed. For the whole semester, he has not been able to fill up his bike tires, preventing him from a smooth ride on his bicycle.
The bigger issue that Watts brought to my attention was the widespread issue of bike theft, which has riddled the community as of recent. So heavily in fact, that the New York Times wrote an article addressing the issue titled, “The Bike Thieves of Burlington, Vermont”, where they estimated that around $267,000 worth of bikes have been stolen within the past two years. This issue affects Burlington resident that I spoke to at Winter Bike to Work Day not once, but twice, and has made him resort to driving a car instead of riding a bike to get from place to place (undoubtedly a move that many like him have had to unwillingly make).
While this all seems very grim, there is hope for biking in Burlington. There have been new measures implemented by both community members and officials to combat bike theft. Videos of the thieves in action have been posted to popular social media sites- such as Facebook- in hopes of identifying the culprits, and the city of Burlington has released a bike registry which they urge community members to join. While bike theft is still an issue, it has been limited by this local action. At UVM Bikes!, the same positivity can be felt. Upon asking around, it was revealed to me by Sasha, the outreach coordinator of UVM Bikes that the shop should be up and running by next week.
