My bro, Tim, honchos a nifty project at the local U., the MSU Bike Project. They take salvage-yard beater bikes abandoned on campus, fix them up, paint them green and put them back in service for needy students and others (donation suggested). Tim and a bunch of volunteers run a pro workshop in a campus basement and have fixed up 300 bikes in their 3 years. The workshop is also open to student use on their own bikes and for training/clinics in bike-repair. These Project bikes used to mostly get left to rust on racks, kicked-in, bashed and junked by clean-up crews. The Project also accepts donor bikes. They put a big emphasis on building up city bikes with baskets, fenders, kickstands and lights, etc., and try to set up as many salvage bikes as they can with these useful features. They’re trying to get more people riding bikes for everyday purposes for all the blatantly obvious reasons why biking is good. Til they came along there was no bike advocacy on campus, nor resources for student’s to work on bikes, and there was tremendous utility-bike wasteage. Basically they’re serving the purpose of the old Bike Co-op that existed in town during the last known period when there was a widespread sense of community around here.
https://www.bikes.msu.edu/
Keeping Old Bikes in Action on Campus
View All Products
