Bikes at College Dorms

[Bikingmomof3]

Yikes, times have charnged-yes it has been 16 years since I was an undergrad, but good grief. I will keep this in mind for when my sons are considering schools. We have been to 4 different locations. As students and now as a professor. I asked my husband if he sees a lot of bikes on the campus he is at and he does not. Although he is fairly certain bike riding is discouraged (we are in Ohio). The previous University (Wyoming) he was at doing his post-doc, almost everyone had a bike and they were very safe. Where we went to grad school, the University (Wisconsin-Madison) was in an extremely bike friendly town with beautiful bike lines and again, all you saw were bikes and they were quite safe ( this was in the early 90s).

Not much help-sorry.

[MomOnBike]

The college Elder Daughter went to (Carleton in MN) has a Yellow Bike program. Beater bikes are donated, painted baby-poop yellow and just left about campus for all and sundry to ride as needed. I think the bike club takes care of maintenence.

This seems to ease the theft program, as Elder Daughter didn't say much about theft problems, and I saw some reasonably good bikes chained to racks outside the dorms.

Of course, Elder Daughter isn't in the least bike crazy (where did I go WRONG???!!!) so she may not have been aware of problems.

[Bikingmomof3]

The college Elder Daughter went to (Carleton in MN) has a Yellow Bike program.

Small world, I was right across the river attending college.

[Triskeliongirl]

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.

[DebW]

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.