What happens when you ask cyclists to arrive early to an MIT PN2K bike event? They deliver! This was our queue at 3:00 PM (for a 3:30PM start):

[left] Dingfang, Yaoming, and Will setting up for the bike event. [right] A queue of cyclists.

Each year, MIT’s newly admitted students (“prefrosh”) are welcomed to campus by four days of free food, music, and festivities in what is called MIT’s Campus Preview Weekend (CPW), sponsored by the Office of Admissions. This is a time for prefrosh to meet and greet, attend MIT classes, explore the diverse culture, and learn about MIT’s nearly 500 student groups dedicated to causes ranging from community service to performance arts, cultural awareness, and much more…

MIT PN2K jumped in at the start — On the first day of CPW, we started welcoming students in and showing them how we were making improvements to bicycle culture and safety in the community. As an undergraduate, you can walk or take the MIT shuttle easily. However, there’s a whole world out there to discover beyond MIT! A bike frees you from the clutches of MIT and allows you to cycle with friends, crack open a textbook on the esplanade, and quickly commute from one place to another on weekends when public transit is not so frequent. As a freshman, we know you’re on sensory overload, so trust us when we say you won’t want to stress over bike lights, helmets, or failing brakes — and you won’t have to — because MIT PN2K now exists! We take the hassle out of biking and repairs and leave you with fewer excuses not to get a bike when the benefits outweigh the costs.

Now, our partners!

We are only able to pull this off with the help of Bike Boom and our initial collaborations with Roy, the store owner. We were thrilled as ever to have Armando, our pro bike expert, back with us! Along with Dan, they diligently led our bike repairs. They had to escape before we were able to catch a proper group photo with them – Next time!

For the first time ever, we also had the exciting opportunity to welcome into the scene the Boston Cyclists Union!

(front) Pete Stidman, Boston Cyclists Union (BCU) with a fellow cyclist.

 

Pete, from BCU, was noticeably impressed by our pressure washer:

 

Our team is working on the day of our May bike event, so keep an eye on this space for news and updates! We will be taking all the feedback from previous events into account and making some changes to provide a better experience for everyone.

Keep Calm & Pedal On,

MIT PN2K team

[left to right] Yaoming, Dingfang, Ye, Alpha, Will

Link to full CPW Bike Fest photo album

Spring Bike Fest totally happened — and it happened with MIT PN2K, a record number of cyclists and repairs, bicycle power-washing, music, food, lights, helmets, volunteers, and a fantastic organizing team.

I arrived at the start of the event and found myself immersed in a fanfare of cyclists and their bikes! Luckily, our Bike Safety Officer, Will, had arrived early for set up, and things looked great. Dingfang and Yaoming were on guard and ready to check people in while Will went to set up our power washer.

Here’s what the scene looked like 30 minutes into the game:

After we passed out tickets to people in line, we realized we were already on ticket #30! Giving 7-10 minutes per person for repairs meant 210-300 minutes total (3 to 4+ hours!). Our event was only from 2-5 pm! Admittedly, this was the first time we had encountered 30 cyclists in the first half hour. For a moment, we considered shutting down the bike repair line … but what about all those coming after 2:30PM, expecting the event to continue until the advertised closing time of 5:00PM? Was this the beginning of the end?

Of course not! Within another 30 minutes, it became apparent that some cyclists needed simple repairs (pumping up flat tires, oiling chains). So we experimented with forming two lines: one line for simple repairs and one with more involved repairs/tune-ups (5-10 minutes per person by our Bike Boom professionals, Roy and Dan). The simple repairs went to Izzy. Who is Izzy?

Meet Izzy.

Izzy here is one of our bike repair volunteers – the “Bike Genius” of MIT PN2K, if you will. On Tuesday during Spring Bike Fest, he was your PN2K instructor – he is here to help you build self-sufficiency as a cyclist, so you leave feeling more confident out there on the vast, wild road. Greet him with a “Hello Izzy!” the next time you see him!

So, things worked out and we did not have to close our bike repair line until 4:30 PM*. Our pressure washing line remained open throughout the whole event – no one denied this free self-service of having their bikes sparkling with cleanliness and looking brand spanking new.

*Now, for those of you who arrived before 5:00PM and didn’t make it into our longer bike repair queue, first we apologize. We apologize if there was a misunderstanding and set an expectation that we would be able to keep our lines open until 5:00PM. Next time, we will remember to advertise the event itself as ending at X O’clock, with an annotation that our line might close up to an hour early, if the number of cyclists in line exceeds our capability to handle everyone. In a perfect world, if 100 of you arrived right before closing time, we would be able to help everyone. As it turns out, it’s not a perfect world: our Bike Boom professionals, volunteers, and lovely team have families, friends, schedules of their own, and dinner to look forward to. BUT, we do have a golden tip for those of you worried about our long lines in the future– and it is this:

* Get here EARLY
(and follow our organizers’ instructions for MIT PN2K registration/sign-in)

As the sunshine and beautiful warmth kicks in to compensate for our snowpocalypse, we expect more rowdiness and good cheer all around. Get here early, grab food, mingle, enjoy the music, dance, do yoga, whatever. Just get here EARLY.

If this option isn’t good enough for you:

* Become an MIT PN2K officer! Free bike repairs/tune-ups during all our events, whatever the line. There are more perks and benefits, but we’ll leave that for another time. Our officers have a lot of room to grow and make an impact in our immediate cycling community – whether you ride a bike once a year or every day, if you can show us how you would make a great addition to our team and culture, we will have an opportunity for you!

But before you commit to joining, you should know a little bit about us:

(left to right) Izzy, Ye, Will, Alpha, Gabriel, Dingfang, Yaoming 

Our next bike event is Thursday, April 16 from 3:30 – 7:30 PM — yes, that would be during MIT’s Campus Preview Weekend! Join us on the Student Center Plaza once again.

Keep Calm & Pedal On,

MIT PN2K Organizing Team

Link to full MIT Spring Bike Fest photo album