Ben Thomas from VeoRide presented an update on the dockless bike share program to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) on November 19, 2019.

All, Last week was uneventful. Without traffic during hours we were afforded a lot of quality sorting/scrapping time.
On Wednesday I met with F&S, Urbana/Champaign, and CCB to discuss Bike Month/BTWD planning and to reflect on this year’s Light The Night. We’ve set the date for Bike To Work Day as Friday, May 1st.
Thursday was our Fix-a-Flat class that was a no-show unfortunately. However, it’s pretty much winter so attendance was expected to be low.
Big news for this week is that we’ll be hosting Working Bikes again this year to help us alleviate our abandoned bikes problem. They’ll be down this Friday from about 11am – 2pm packing up bikes to take back with them to Chicago. TBP and I will be there on Wednesday to clear out the good ones. I’ve got a couple staffers who said they’re available to help but I’ll put the word out with TBP to see if we can stir up some more volunteers. The more the merrier!
The numbers:
Visitors: 67
Sales: 171.50
Bike (B-a-B): 2 for $65
Memberships: 2 for $60
Tire/tubes: 1 for $5

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Please see the numbers below for the month of October 2019. ~400 e-bikes and ~75 pedal bikes

October:

Total Rides – 37,443

• Peddle Bike – 3,677
• E-bike – 33,766

Total Users gained – 1,281

Average Ride Time – 8.76 Minutes

Overall:

Total Rides: 375,147

Total Users:19,749

Reporting:

• We received 5 reports to remove bikes from private property
• We received 10 calls about bikes parked inappropriately

Events: We were a sponsor for the Aruna 5k on Oct 26th. We provided 250 coupons good for $2 of ride credits

All, Steady week, surprisingly. We even had a waiting list one day. Generally, though, things have slowed down. We’re still getting our inventory tallied up. We’ve got 6 bikes for sale with a few more to come.

Last week I counted and moved bikes around at the warehouse. I’ll be doing more of that this week with the help of some of my student staff. I have reached out to Working Bikes about coming down to collect our unusable bikes. I’ll have a better idea of just how many bikes that’ll be after this week.
This week we’ll be keeping on with the inventory/pitching junk, organizing the parts we keep, building up the good bikes, and the aforementioned warehouse bike fun.

The numbers:

Sales: $318
Memberships: 5 for $150
Tires/tubes:  8 for $30

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

All, Despite the cooler weather the shop was still relatively busy all week. On Thursday or Friday we even had a waiting list.
In other news, we achieved Silver status for our Bicycle Friendly University! Congrats to all those involved.

Last Thursday night we had our What To Wear class at ARC. It went well. 3 people stopped by and we covered all there is to riding in colder weather. Thankfully the people who came already had well-equipped bikes for the muck and suck of the winter elements so it was mostly talking details of clothing choice and how much salt/snow/ice can impair the function of your bike. Fun times!
Also of note was our 3(!) Build-a-Bikes completed last week, two of which were done on Thursday. When that program works, it is empowering like none other. Unfortunately, it’s a big hill to climb.

Elsewhere, I’ve been having Staff and volunteers count our used and new parts to compile a master list of inventory. It’s tedious but important to be able to figure how much stuff we’ll be moving the new CBC.

Thanks to Todd for grabbing scrap over the weekend.

This week we’ll continue to purge and pare down our inventory, build bikes, and keep plugging away at prep for our move.

The numbers:

Visitors: 96
Sales: $616.25
Memberships: 8 for $240
Bikes (refurb): 0
Bikes (B-a-B):  3 for $266
Tires/tubes: 17 for $76

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

All, We’ve slowed down enough to offer the First Visit Free option again, which has its plusses and minuses but is at least consistent with our website/literature on the topic.

Last week we had our Bike Maintenance 101 class. Three attendees came, despite the cold and rain, so that was awesome. I think all of them had issues with their own bikes that precipitated their interest in the class and two of them said they’d be back to fix their bikes. A success!
One bike was on the donation rack this morning. Another small bike but of good quality that’ll hopefully fix up quickly.
I got in touch with someone from the Fine and Applied Arts to see if there’s any interest in using some of our scrap metal to keep it out of the dump but that was a dead end. I’ll still try to think of ways to keep our scrap pile a little smaller since we’re frequently at-or-beyond capacity. I think overall, we don’t have enough venues through which to repurpose a bicycle beyond B-a-B and Shop Builds. Something to think about.
This week if we’re slow I’ll have the student staff do a deep dive on our used parts inventory to get a better picture of just how many bike parts we’re storing here. Additionally, we have our What to Wear info session at ARC on Thursday evening from 7 – 8p.

The numbers:
Visitors: 82
Sales: $677.75
Memberships: 14 for $420
Tire/tubes: 14 for $79

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Please see attached the list of avenues used to promote Light the Night event.

There were 400 e-bikes and nearly 75 pedal bikes in operation. Please see the September Report below:

September Rides: 36,426

• E‐bikes – 31,976
• Peddle bikes – 4,449

September User Growth: 2,203
September Average Ride Time: 8 minutes
Average Rides per day: 1,214
Total Ridership: 337,704
Total Userbase: 18,567

Reports to remove bikes from Private property: 23
Reports of improper parking: 25

Below are answers to questions brought up at our last meeting on campus:

1. Vandalism – Here at UIUC the vandalism rate on the peddle bikes was 1 out of 15 bikes. We consider vandalism any damage the is inconsistent with normal ware and tear. (Baskets breaking off, thrown in creek/river, destroying tires etc.) So far with the e‐bikes we have 10 total that have been vandalized. A much lower rate.
2. Check on donation availability – At this time the company views donation as a great idea but the liability if something happens down the road is too much of a risk at this time.
3. Number of scrapped bikes – 215peddle bikes

All, Abbreviated week for me as I was out of town Thursday and Friday. I’ll check in with my staff this week and see how things went in my absence.

There are 6 bikes on the outside rack from this weekend but unfortunately one or two are locked up as if it’s a regular bike rack. Whoops!

This week will be busy as we have Light The Night on Thursday and our second Fix-a-Flat class on Friday. I’ll be talking up the F-a-F class incessantly this week in hopes of increasing participation numbers. For LTN I’ll be splitting my staff up between the shop and the event for the time that they overlap.

We have been oscillating back and forth between allowing for Free Visits and not depending on how busy we are and how well-staffed we are at that time. So that points to things getting a little calmer (thankfully). Addressing the burnout my staff and I feel during these very busy beginning months will be a task for the winter.

Moving all the kids bikes over to Salt & Light didn’t end up happening last week so I’ll shoot for getting those out this week. It’ll help with clearing everything out for our move. Exciting times!
 

The numbers:
Visitors: 96
Sales: $1,242.50
Memberships: 16 for $480
Bikes (refurb): 2 for $225
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $57
Tires/tubes: 20 for $92

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center