From left, epidemiology master’s student Khalid Ibrahim, MSU librarian and Haslett resident Mike Unsworth and Royal Oak resident Milan Talreja share bike stories during the Spring Launch Party on Wednesday at the Lansing Bike Co-op, 414 E. Michigan Ave., in Lansing.
For Tim Potter, being around bicycles — fixing them, selling them and riding them — was a big part of growing up in Okemos and his years at MSU.
Potter, now the manager of the MSU Bikes Service Center, was part of the East Lansing Bike Co-op in the 1970s and has provided some of his past experience and advice to the newly organized Lansing Bike Co-op leading up to its Spring Launch Party held Wednesday.
The Lansing Bike Co-op first was organized in September 2009 and geared up for the summer season by inviting the community to Basement 414, 414 E. Michigan Ave., in Lansing, to educate bike owners about maintaining and repairing their own bikes.
“When they started talking about putting together a co-op, I was excited,” Potter said. “It gives them a chance to get help with their bikes and learn how to do it themselves. We do a little bit of that here at the Bikes Service Center, but this gives them a chance to learn themselves.”
Casey McKell, a Lansing resident, helped organize the co-op after a Power Shift Conference last fall, which brought together student activists from across the state. McKell said one of the sessions focused on the idea of bike co-ops and some Lansing community members decided to start one.
“(Bike co-ops) are a place where you can come, and you have access to the tools that you might not have at home,” McKell said. “Mechanics can show you how to work on your own bike. We’re encouraging people to get on bicycles, promoting alternative transportation and making it fun.”
MSU mathematics graduate student Andrew Cooper commutes via bicycle to campus every day and came out to the Spring Launch Party to help community members repair their bicycles and to teach them how to work on their bikes themselves. Cooper said he enjoys repairing bicycles and has built many of them himself without much knowledge prior to starting.
“You just dive right in,” he said. “It’s like being a doctor, but nobody dies. It’s fun.”
McKell said members get involved in bike co-ops for different reasons.
“I think riding bikes is a really easy way that we can help reduce our carbon footprint,” she said. “I do a lot of environmental work to fight climate change, and this is an easy alternative to driving cars.”
Potter said bicycling provides new opportunities for students to travel around campus.
“It’s good for students because it’s very affordable, and it’s fun,” he said. “It’s so much cheaper to use and repair than having a car, and for graduates that may not have a big, high-paying job, it’s convenient. But for anybody, it’s a nice lifetime activity and sport. We’re seeing more and more people commuting to work that way.”
McKell said the Lansing Bike Co-op will work to advocate bike-friendly practices and construction in Lansing as well as work to raise awareness about biking events in the area.
“As a part of the U.S. Social Forum, people will be biking from all over the country to come to Detroit for a national summit,” she said. “At least 50 people and maybe more will be passing through Lansing. We’re hosting them in a tent city on the east side of Lansing and will have a knowledge share, a community service project and then bike from there to
Detroit together.”
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