Gas prices are surging and public transit is facing huge cuts, meanwhile, a group of students at USF just opened a bike co-op, and have already given away twelve free bikes to students in need of wheels. USF students are finding joy and community while speeding up their commute, exercising and reducing their personal CO2 emissions. Bike culture is so back!
While there are challenges to riding and owning a bike in a city, there are also plenty of opportunities for the practice of bike riding to be made more safe and accessible. It may change your life like how it changed mine.
Bikes have been important to college campuses for a long time. Cavin Thigpen, the director of policy research at the institute of transportation studies at UC Davis found that during their years in school, “students come to enjoy bicycling as an efficient, convenient mode of transportation, given budgetary constraints at this age.” College life nurtures sustainable lifestyle habits, like biking, that follow students long after graduation. Students can get a head start by joining student-run bike co-ops, which have popped up on many bike-friendly campuses, like Oberlin College, UC Santa Cruz and more.
USF has historically had a bike co-op of our own, although it’s come and gone as the students who ran it have graduated. Backstage Bikes, named for its location backstage of the Presentation theater on Lone Mountain, is a bike co-op run by students, for students. At the workshop you can fix a flat, adjust your brakes or completely build up a new bike, all for free and with help from your peers. According to the mission statement of Backstage Bikes, “We are here to have fun and learn along the way. Whether you bike to commute, for recreation or are training for the Tour de France, we’re here for you!”
My dear friend Izy Well and I revived Backstage Bikes this January after it had been dormant since the pandemic. We are both big bike riders and advocates and saw an opportunity to create a resource for students at USF to improve access to biking. This semester, Backstage Bikes held three bike donation events, led group rides, and hired two more students to continue the co-op next semester. All of this, and more, is to build a strong, self-sustaining community of riders at USF and to address the many barriers that prevent bike culture at USF from reaching its true potential.
One barrier we’ve encountered is the anxiety that students face surrounding personal safety as a rider in an urban environment. Heavy car traffic and steep hills make plenty of people nervous of biking, but there are ways to navigate this. Confidence can be built through learning to ride in groups of trusted people and in exploring the creative routes in San Francisco that limit the amount of cars and steep hills riders have to interact with. The first group ride we did at Backstage Bikes introduced riders to “The Wiggle”, which is a bike path from Market st. to the Panhandle on protected bike lanes and sharrows (lanes shared by bikes and cars) and with as few hills as possible. Furthermore, slow streets and streets closed to car traffic altogether (like the JFK Promenade and the Great Highway) are other forms of infrastructure that help bikers stay safe. And speaking from personal experience, I have no shame using the bike racks on MUNI buses to get my bike around the city if I don’t feel comfortable riding.
Another hurdle for students is the initial cost of biking, as purchasing and maintaining bikes can be expensive and time consuming. Backstage Bikes addresses this by giving away bikes, providing a space for students to use parts and tools for free, and teaching mechanic skills to students to foster self-sufficiency. If you don’t know how to fix a flat or if you’re experiencing a problem with your bike, you can visit the co-op to figure out these issues and learn along the way. At the shop, many students have begun projects of their own, building up frames and customizing them to their liking. My personal favorite project is a vintage teal and orange Peugeot being constructed by a student to use in their upcoming triathlon.
There are no experts at Backstage Bikes, but what’s an expert anyways? It can be very rewarding to identify an issue and learn how to fix it without paying anyone to do it for you. And if the shop managers can’t teach you, someone on Youtube can.
I started riding a bike as a sophomore at USF. Two years later, I can see how much bike riding has improved my life. I’ve gotten to explore the city in a new way, meet a community of bicycle enthusiasts at bike-oriented volunteering and various group rides, and I find my bike to be the fastest way to get around the city. Finally, Backstage Bikes has transformed my relationship with biking and I hope it will continue to support students and their bike journeys forever. If you are looking for a sign to start riding, consider this to be it!
