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