Bikes @ Brown

Mission:

Our mission is to facilitate bike usage and increase its prevalence on Brown’s campus and throughout the Ocean State.

History:

Bikes @ Brown was founded in January 2009 when Carly Sieff ‘09 and Michael Teshima ’11 of the Brown Outing Club used surplus funds to launch a bike rental service. B@B launched in March with seven eye-catching purple and gold bicycles and immediately began renting them out for 1-3 days at a time.

Since then, the program has loaned bikes to many students, staff and faculty. It has also repaired donated bikes and serviced them for use by the Brown community. In February 2011, Bikes @ Brown joined emPower as a member group and started an initiative to create an on-campus bike repair shop in the basement of Faunce.

How to Rent or Get Repairs:

People can come to our office to rent bikes between 4 and 5pm, Monday-Saturday. They can also bring in bikes for repairs during those hours on Mondays and Wednesdays. Our office is located in the hallway next to the Multi-Purpose Room (the old Blue Room) in Faunce It is shared with the Outing Club office and there are signs pointing the way. We charge a $5/semester membership fee that lets members rent bikes out as many times as they want, for 1-3 days each time. We also rent out bikes for long-weekends, school breaks and group events. Lastly, we require a $15 deposit that is returned at the end of the semester.

Projects:

We are currently focusing our energy on obtaining bike donations, on obtaining bike tools and parts to more effectively run our bike repair shop and increasing awareness of the bike rental program.

We held a bike repair workshop on Wednesday, April 27th from 3-5pm on the Main Green. At this free workshop, held in honor of Earth Week, we not only fixed flat tires, patched tires and adjusted brakes but taught how to conduct these repairs as well!

Also, on May 18th we will be lending our bikes to Ride of Silence, in memory of Paige Hicks ’11.