Bikes at College Dorms

We have dealt with this problem in two ways. I had my precious bike friday stolen while locked to a bike rack at the medical school where I work. My daughter had her bike 'stolen' or rather confiscated by her campus police by not following a registration procedure she was unaware of. After a couple months the bike was located and returned to her. If we were too do it over, I would buy my daughter a used bike friday that she can fold and put in a bag and carry into her room so it no longer looks like a bike. Another option is to have our kids lobby for indoor secure bike storage. My daughter's current problem is not so much theft and vandalism, but damage from the wet cold new england winters.

When I was in school (74-78) the campus opened a secure bike parking facility that always had a guard who would check in your bike and give you a tag to reclaim it with later in the day. That was for daytime bike parking on campus. This was Cambridge, MA so bike theft was a serious problem. Not sure how the dorms worked, since I never lived in one. I lived in a 30-person co-ed fraternity with lots of bike nuts, so bikes were kept inside the house and the "Pit Bike Shop" was open on request.

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Originally Posted by Eden

When I was in college I had my locked bike stolen from inside one of the dorm buildings - and our campus was out in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't suggest having anything nice on campus.

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Ditto, exactly. My lock was cut off a rack in the dorm basement. :(

My roommate had a beautiful Trek mtb back in the day when no one knew what mtb's were (barely) and she kept it locked up in our dorm room! :eek:

And we went to a small, weathy school in the middle of nowhere. Go figure.

I forgot to add that my daughter's current solution is to keep an older, relatively inexpensive hybrid at school (i.e. beater), and to use both a U-lock and a cable lock, to at least make it not the easiest bike on the rack to steal.

I second the beater bike route. Craiglist??? Goodwill??? Garage sales????

At the college where I work, I've seen bikes stored in the stairwell-even though I'm sure it was against policy, but no one said anything and I would've put mine there too. locked to somethng sturdy of course-out of the weather. At my Univ- nearby town, bikes are left outside locked to racks. I'm sure some got stolen, but I've seen them left alone too. On one rack I saw the same 3 bikes and no one touched them(one was a beater mtn bike and one a cruiser) and it was a high traffic area. So I guess it's where you are. I agree that campuses should have storage for bikes, that can't take up that much space can they?

This is why I rent a bike locker to the tune of $15/month. The City of Portland has a bank of them installed on campus at Portland State, and it's worth every penny to me.