Bike repair stations are being added to more colleges, such as Oakland University in Michigan, to encourage students to ride rather than drive. The stations help with minor adjustments and repairs to keep bicycles safe and in good working condition
Bike Repair Stations are a simple yet very effective convenience you can add to a location if you want to promote bicycle commuting instead of driving.
These bike tune-up stations send a strong message that your college, apartment building, office or store or even entire town caters to cyclists.
This is one strategy used by Oakland, University in Rochester, Michigan. The school enrolls 20,012 students and as you can imagine, that would be a large amount of vehicular traffic to accommodate if they all drove to class.
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"We decided on putting these Bike Repair Stations on campus to encourage bike use across campus as well as provide extra spots for our bike loan users to do small fixes on the bike they have checked out," said Bill Singleton, Assistant Director, Facilities and Aquatics.
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Bike Repair Stations come with a complete set of bike tools
The stations are fully equipped with everything a cyclist needs to adjust or make minor repairs on a bicycle. They include an assortment of bike related tools such as Phillips and Standard screwdrivers, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 mm Allen wrenches, headset wrenches, pedal wrench, 8,9,10,11 mm box wrenches and tire levers.
One of three Bike Repair Station provided on the grounds of the Oakland University campus in Rochester, MI
The tools are tethered to the stand with an aircraft-grade stainless cable that is retractable and difficult to cut.
Some Bike Repair Stations also come with a manual air pump and gauge. The pump head can be used for both Schrader and Presta valves.
That air pump can be incredibly handy and an important safety feature for a student who finds themselves on campus with a deflated tire late at night.
There are two "hanger arms" where a cyclist positions their bicycle so they can work on it while standing upright. That certainly makes for preventing a sore back or bending over while trying to get to a derailleur, brake or cable.
Oakland University is a very busy campus
If you ever check out Oakland University (OU) you can see there is quite a bit of activity taking place on the 1,400-acre campus.
The university hosted one of the Republican presidential debates held in 2012.
There are 132 different bachelor's degree programs and 138 graduate programs. Studies range from business administration to education, engineering, computer science, health sciences, medicine, and nursing.
In 2011, US News and World Report said their Beaumont Nurse Anesthesia Graduate Program was ranked 17th in the nation.
The School of Business Administration is one of only 170 business schools in the world to hold the AACSB accreditation for both business and accounting.
Sports teams are known as the Golden Grizzlies.
Some notable alumnus includes Robert Englund, David Hasselhoff, Karen Newman, Regina Carter, and Jayne Houydyshell.
There are three thousand students who live on campus and thousands more who live in the surrounding area.
This is a simple equation for any college. The more students you can persuade to bicycle to class, the fewer traffic jams and the less need to use valuable real estate to handle all that parking.
"I think the product has met our expectations and has all the tools that your everyday bike user would need to fix small things on their bike and add air to their tires when needed," Bill said. "The product has gotten tons of use during this semester as students have started to notice it."
Bike commuting is all about bicycle infrastructure. Bicycles need to see safe and protected bike lanes where they can ride with confidence on busy highways. Cyclists also need to see adequate outdoor bicycle parking racks so they have a safe and secure place to lock their bicycles.
The icing on the proverbial cycling cake would be to add more Bike Repair Stations, as Oakland University has done, to keep bikes in safe, working condition and to keep tires inflated when needed.