Bike Repair Stations

[eminva]

Wouldn’t it be great to have this amenity at some key locations along our MUTs and heavily biked urban areas?

http://gizmodo.com/#!5785258/repair-your-bike-for-free-at-these-public-bike-repair-stations

Liz

Topic

[Brock]

These would be awesome.

The comments on the article made me chuckle. The first one begins with, “1000 dollars is crazy expensive” and then it turned into an argument about government waste and how much these would actually cost to build. I’m to the point where I just kind of shrug my shoulders when I hear this kind of stuff. If you wanted to outfit your garage, yeah, $1000 might be steep, but compared to the infrastructure projects happening every day in a city, this is pocket change – and would help get people out of cars.

[Riley Casey]

Cute but somehow I just don’t see this as an alternative to having a hand pump and a folding bike tool in my pannier.

[Mark Blacknell]

Of course, only a tiny fraction of people ride with panniers, and only a slightly larger fraction of people carry the tools they need for roadside repair (based on my many *many* stops to help unprepared cyclists). I think this would be money well spent in a busy cycling corridor like Columbia Rd. or Wilson Blvd.

[Dirt]

During my Tour of the American Health Care System on Friday, I noticed that there are quite a few good signs that point to local bike shops close to the MUTs. I also rode past 2 different air stations. I’ve never actually tried to use them, but I have seen people arrive at one with no air in their tire and ride away.

That is a bit of a start.

Definitely a cool idea!

Great post. Thank you!

[Mark Blacknell]

Those air stations are the Eagle Scout project of a local kid (wish I could recall his name). Took no small amount of permission-seeking on his part, I think. If I can figure out a good way to secure the tools, I could imagine helping “upgrade” these stations a bit some time this summer.

[Author]

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