TSN: Why is the MSU Bikes Service Center now part of the MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center?

Tim Potter: It was proposed almost a year ago, but actually going way back to when MSU Bikes was becoming a full-funded service to the university, the people who were trying to figure out where it would best go organizationally, it was thought about at the time going under the Surplus Store. But having the same unit do all of the bike sales, that is one of the main drivers of why we’ve merged; it is to bring all of the bike sales activities to the same location. There will still be this location here (at the MSU Bikes Service Center) and the Surplus location will continue to sell bikes there as well.

Can the MSU community expect to see any changes at the Surplus Store and Recycling Center or the MSU Bikes Service Center?

There will be a lot more storage space for our bikes. We also hope we’ll start to provide bikes that will be safer and more operationally sound than have been sold at the Surplus Store in the past. In the future, our plan is to offer bikes that are fixed up down there. All the bikes we sell or rent here (at MSU Bikes Service Center) are fixed up. For bikes at the surplus store, we may end up having some of our fixed up bikes down there. For the time being, there will continue to be bikes that are as is, rather than completely tuned up bikes, but we’ll put more detailed information on each bike as to estimated repairs and try to give the customer a lot more information of what they’re looking at, rather than getting a mystery bag when buying a bike from the Surplus Store. To a lot of people who don’t know about bikes, purchasing a bike from the Surplus Store can oftentimes be something that costs a lot more than it’s worth to fix up. People appreciate having more information. We hope that will be something the public and campus community will enjoy.

When can we expect bikes from the MSU Bikes Service Center to be sold at the Surplus Store and Recycling Center?

Initially this fall, the Surplus Store won’t be another shop where people can go in for repairs. It’s something we might have next spring or next fall, but it certainly won’t be this fall. It will take quite a bit of work and man power to get people to go down to the Surplus Store to do repairs on a regular basis.