MSU is a huge campus with thousands of bikers. But bike shops have been fleeing the nearby city center for the past decade—along with most other core-type businesses (as bars, tanning parlors and cellphone outlets move in).
My bro, Tim, has been part of the volunteer MSU Bike Project for the past few years. They salvage abandoned bikes, maintain a fleet of lease bikes and teach bike repair.
This fall, though, launched a big turning point. Astonishingly, the MSU Admin asked the bike folks if they’d like to run a full-fledged service program in their own fully-equipped shop space. Jaws dropped.
They have a great space next to the river in the heart of campus.
My bro ended up being hired as the first manager and set up the new shop from scratch over the summer. They just opened last week with a Grand Opening that the Univ. Prez even attended!
MSU is turning to bikes! Wow!
And my bro is now probably one of the only unionized bike shop managers in the country.
He’s busy launching all their truly myriad service sectors. What a task! He’s hiring several fulltime student wrenches, some part-timers, training them all, setting up volunteer stations and training newbies, setting up repair, renting and leasing programs. They’re even doing accessory retail. Wow! And…WHEW!
It looks like they’re about 1/3 up to speed at this point. It has to be tough finding people who really know about bikes!
Someone emailed me asking more about the shop, and, yes, I think it’s going to function quite a bit like the old bike co-ops. The general public will probably soon be able to come in and build up bikes for cheap using the parts in their salvage bins. Or just work on their own bikes using shop tools. I’d imagine this would be on a small fee, donation, volunteered-time basis. It’s a learning/recycling resource!
Here’s a pic of half the workspace (quarter of whole shop). Clean, new!
