Post-triaging workshop update: Thanks to the great ASA space clean out, we could tag bikes we wanted out of here! So we did. I must say, from a spectator’s point of view, the process was fascinating, watching students who knew some basics of bike repair get their hands dirty and strip away the good parts from bad bikes (under the supervision of Jacob and Miranda). The real magic was watching a lone frame being chosen, a spare front wheel added, then a spare back wheel — and voila! New bike. We cleared out a lot of space (and added two boxes of spare bike parts). MIT movers came by and said our office was “a castle” compared to some others. Guess we’re ready to start having office hours (soon)!
We did a bit of brainstorming on how we might want to revise MIT PN2K's activities to reflect our mission and better serve the growing number of PN2K members we have. One problem has been that bike events require large-scale organization and requires everyone helping to be available. Volunteers who aren't working full-time (aka students) are often flooded by MIT homework and psets and unable to commit to organizing monthly large scale events. Even more importantly, bike problems happen spontaneously-- sometimes requiring immediate attention (e.g., bike brakes not working, flat tire, etc.). As frequently as our bike events are held, timing-wise, they are still suboptimal since a cyclist cannot just email us to receive immediate help (in which case, they are once again forced to either wait it out until our next bike event or take their bike to a shop and pay $40-$100+ for their repairs (in which case, they throw up both hands in exasperation and yell, "Why do I bike??!") Well, that's not what we want.
I biked all the way from MIT to Newton on a VBike (it only cost $2) and met Nicole Freedman! When I started working with PN2K is when I first became involved with the bike safety. When you’re at MIT and in the field of bike safety, you’re bound to hear some names, one of them being Nicole’s. Nicole was formerly known as the 
Yaoming speaks with Aditya about VBikes. Aditya and his friends had questions about VBikes and dockless bike share. Admittedly, I would be, too, considering if I had friends who didn’t own bikes, I would want them to have this option for riding along and down the Esplanade — one of the great joys of Boston.
Our team shook off the post-accident shivers and decompressed by going to Bertucci's. We had a pretty diverse and solid conversation, ranging from cycling to random movies/shows. One thing we learned from one of our cyclists was that a nearby "witness" during the accident had said, "It was those cyclists!" in response to seeing the accident. Wait, what? How did us cyclists cause the collision in any way? It was strange, and this kicked off a conversation on stories of personal experiences where cyclists have been scapegoated or somehow marginalized/ignored (particularly in accident scenarios). There's a lot of interesting debate and discussion that evolve from the intersection of law and biking (like why the law does not necessarily protect cyclists). This will be an ever-evolving field, and we encourage more discussion and engagement in your own biking communities and events. If you don't know where to begin, start with jumping on a bike or joining one of our future (virtual) meetings.