Nine Dollar Cardboard Bike

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670753/this-9-cardboard-bike-can-support-riders-up-to-485lbs

Research Paper

The Importance of Bicycles to Modern Society

            Global warming was discovered many years ago, and automobiles were discovered to be a leading cause of greenhouse gas production many years ago, and yet people in most places in the United States have not stopped driving automobiles as their main source of transportation.  The simple solution is to stop driving automobiles so often and start riding bicycles more often, thereby reducing a large amount of greenhouse gas production.  Bicycles are also beneficial in many other ways, and if they’re not used for green purposes, they should at least be used for the other benefits they provide, such as better health, more social interaction, a shift to a less “fast” society, and less monetary strain on its users.  All these reasons and more illuminate what should be obvious: a nationwide shift to the greater use of bicycles as a major means of transportation would greatly benefit the nation in numerous ways as well as engender a great cultural and societal change.

            Bicycling creates more opportunities for a more social environment and a more social culture.  As David Horton says in his essay, “riding a bicycle necessitates encounters with others…the bicycle arguably embodies a much stronger ‘public’ orientation than the car” (46).  This statement is a great summation of why bicycles are more of a social form of transportation, because despite the fact that, as he says, it is “a form of ‘private’ transport” a cyclist is still out in the open on the road and can interact with other cyclists and pedestrians on the streets and sidewalks, especially when stopped at a light or in traffic (Horton 46).  This social aspect of bicycling is one of the most important aspects of a large shift to cycling because, as it is, people in modern society tend to be more detached from their city or town because they are always driving everywhere, only meeting new people occasionally. And much of the interaction which takes place now is digital because of the widespread use text messages, e-mails, and Facebook which contributes even more to this social detachment which is so prominent now.  So when people are biking to work, or to the gym, or anywhere else they need to go, they might see another cyclist and strike up a conversation because they have the common interest of cycling, whether it be cycling for cycling’s sake or cycling for the environment’s sake.      

            On a similar note, bicycling also reduces the “fast” nature of our society, and “use of the bicycle tends to keep everyday life within ‘cycling’ distance” (Horton 48).  Because automobiles can go so much farther in relatively short amounts of time, they have led to a huge expansion and “distances between homes, schools, workplaces, shops, friends, and sites of leisure have grown,” which adds to this social detachment which has been so pervasive in the twenty-first century (Horton 48).  On the other hand using a bicycle for all shorter trips actually constricts the geographical sprawl of everyday life, keeping everything closer and more contained than automobiles do (Horton 48).  The negative aspects of our lives that  urban sprawl contributes to are “increased air pollution, traffic congestion, ‘wasted’ time, obesity, falling public involvement, declining social interaction and deteriorating quality of life,” and so if this urban sprawl could be reduced by a constriction of everyday life, many of these problems could be alleviated (Horton 48). 

            The health benefits that could be reaped from a shift to short-trip bicycling are many.  The WHO has estimated that about sixty to eighty percent of the world does not meet “the recommendations required to induce health benefits,” and it estimates that 62.4% of Europeans are inactive to this extent as well (Hoek 1112).  According to the American Heart Association, all adults between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five need at least thirty minutes of moderate exercise at least five days a week, or at least twenty minutes of intense exercise at least three days a week (Hoek 1112).  The thirty minutes of moderate exercise are easily attained if one simply rides a bicycle to and from their workplace every day, and there are many other opportunities to ride one’s bicycle somewhere other than work.  The Kokua Kalihi Valley in Hawaii has set a great example of how to get people involved in healthy exercise, and their own community as well.  A health center was established there in 1972, and from its inception had two main goals: developing a state park and developing a “bicycle repair and recycling program” (Hamamoto 1).  Both programs energized the community and both were achieved within their five-year goal.  In four years nearly two-thousand bicycles were repaired and donated to Kalihi Valley citizens, and this success has spurred large cities such as Honolulu and O’ahu to try and replicate Kalihi Valley’s initiative and become more bicycle friendly and more active (Hamamoto 5).  Because of these two initiatives, many other similar programs are being started in Kalihi Valley to promote physical activity, and all of these programs have fostered a lot of community togetherness and support (Hamamoto 6).  The Kalihi Valley has set a great example for what can be done to spread the use of bicycles in communities, what can be done to increase and encourage physical activity within the community, and what can be done to strengthen the community itself.

Automobile use is not only a health risk for cyclists, the greenhouse gases that automobiles produce are harmful to anybody who goes outside.  These greenhouse gases also contribute to global warming, which, although it doesn’t have much short term significance, will be a great health risk in the future due to the hot and cold weather extremes and the increase in natural disasters.  Automobiles are also extremely unsustainable and the fossil fuels which they run on cannot be replenished in anything close to a realistic amount of time.  As a result we will continue to pollute until the fossil fuels run out and we will no longer be able to use them for any of our other technology which needs small amounts of fossil fuels to function properly.

            The automobile also creates a huge monetary strain on its users; it relies on unreplenishable and unsustainable fossil fuels and the Earth is already running out of these fuels. As a result oil prices will continue to rise as fossil fuels become more scarce.  Basic economics says that if the demand for something is great and the supply of that something is also great, its prices will not be ludicrous, however if demand for something is great, and the supply of it is sparse,    its prices will be ludicrous.  It is already possible to see this to some extent now with the fluctuation of gas prices, but as the fossil fuels become less and less available to make into oil, prices will continue to rise to the point that the average citizen will not be able to afford to drive anywhere because the gas is simply too expensive to make short trips worth the money.  This is only one of the factors making automobiles a monetary strain too. Any new car will cost upwards of ten-thousand dollars, usually no less than fifteen-thousand, which is an absolutely huge investment for most citizens, so huge that loans have to be taken out just to afford the car.  Furthermore, an automobile will invariably have some sort of mechanical difficulty during its lifespan, even if only driven for ten years, and automobile repairs tend to be extremely costly.  If a cyclist were to get in an accident where their bicycle was totaled but they were not killed, they would not have to pay much more money to get a new bike (one thousand dollars would get one a very nice bike), however if an automobile user were to get in an accident in which their car were severely damaged, not even necessarily totaled, the costs for repair or replacement would greatly overshadow the costs required to repair or replace a bicycle.

One of the biggest concerns with a large amount of people shifting to cycling as their major means of transportation is risk.  In his essay, Gerard Hoek suggests that “promoting cycling for health reasons implies that the health benefits of cycling should outweigh the risks of cycling,” which is a very pertinent observation to make considering the fact that there are definitely great risks involved when cycling through an urban area in traffic (1109).  There is the obvious risk of being hit by a car or falling of one’s bicycle and being severely physically injured, however another great risk factor, one that is not always talked about when cycling is discussed, is the pollution factor.  However, Hoek shows that in the case of air pollution, “exposures experienced by car drivers were modestly higher than those experienced by cyclists,” and so this risk can’t be ruled out as a non-risk for cyclists, however, it is not a risk that can be made into an argument for use of automobiles instead of bicycles (1110).  On the other hand, Hoek found that except for younger age groups, cyclists tend to have higher incidences of accidents than automobile drivers; however it has been shown in a few European countries that “the number of traffic deaths of cyclists is inversely related to the amount of cycling” which suggests that even though cyclists tend to have more accidents than automobiles, it may be the automobiles which facilitate the accidents for the cyclists, and that there is a “safety in numbers” effect being shown (Hoek 1112).  After taking all these factors into consideration, Hoek shows that, when averaged out, the life expectancy gains from daily, short-trip bicycle riding outweigh the life expectancy losses from these daily, short-trip bicycle rides by a factor of about nine (1113).

One of the main risks shown by Hoek in his essay was that cyclists are exposed to air pollution when they ride, however much of this air pollution comes from cars.  Graeme Lindsay shows that in New Zealand a 5% shift in kilometers travelled by automobile to bicycles would “reduce transport-related greenhouse emissions by 0.4%,” which is definitely a small number, however if there were a shift of around 20%, it would logically reduce emissions by at least 1%, which while still small, is a sizeable amount of greenhouse gas production reduction (1).  And this is not to mention the fact that it would reduce the amount of “other pollutants such as PM₁₀ and volatile organic compounds” as well as reduce the number of pollution-related deaths by about six people per year (Lindsay 1,4).  So essentially if there weren’t as many cars on the road, or if people drove less, there would be less pollution, and therefore less health risks for cyclists and automobile drivers alike, so there should be no reason to continue senseless, harmful pollution.

            Bicycles seem to provide only benefits, and yet despite all of the benefits of using bicycles as a major method of short-distance transportation, few people utilize them in such a way.  It may have something to do with the general laziness that pervades American society, the idea that we want quick results; we want to get places as fast as possible, medicine to work as fast as possible, and generally to get our desired result as fast as possible.  As a result of this, and the fact that many modern technologies have made this “fast as possible” mentality very easy to live by, very few people are willing to slow down their lives for the sake of the environment, or for their health, or the sake of others.  It would seem that, and we can take the Kahili Valley’s efforts as an example, with a little education, motivation, and incentive to have a more active, environment conscious lifestyle, people will be more willing and open to use bicycles to get places.  If a change like this could take place it would greatly benefit our society by making us healthier and more mindful of our environment and our society, and hopefully people will begin to see that this bicycling lifestyle could really help improve the way we currently live.

Critical Analysis

Critical Analysis of “Environmentalism And The Bicycle”

            Usually bicycles are not considered to be objects that signify rebellion or that they are symbolic of the green movement. In his article, “Environmentalism And The Bicycle,” Dave Horton shows us why he considers them to have such an important role in the green movement.  In the introduction Horton describes that a green materiality is an object that is “central to the development of green visions within environmentalist discourse” and narrows this idea down to focus solely on the bicycle (Horton 41).  The article is essentially attempting to explain why bicycles are so important, not only to individual environmentalists, but also to the environmentalist cause as a whole, and through various assertions and statistics it accomplishes its goal very well.

            His thesis is that the bicycle “is a vehicle mobilized in the construction of a political and green way of life” and that it accomplishes this because it is not only symbolic of the environmental movement, but also because it is practical, “an object of daily use… which lends distinctive form to the everyday lives of environmental activists” (Horton 42).  One of his main points is that historically the bicycle has engendered change or helped a movement gain ground, and that this is exactly the case with environmentalism.  The main reason he starts with this point is most likely to convince readers that the bicycle is capable of changing things, as it already has in the not so distant past.  If this is the case then this is a very good way for him to make his point, as it is easier to convince people that the bicycle is important to the environmental movement if it has been shown to have been important for other movements as well.  One of his other main points is a sort of composite point; that is he addresses all the benefits that come from biking: “it alleviates congestion, lowers pollution, reduces obesity, increases physical fitness… and is affordable” (Horton 44).  It is impossible to deny that all of these traits are immensely beneficial to our society, and so if true—which they are—most readers should be moved by these facts to take some action and make a change to bicycles, which makes this another great point.  He also presents the idea that cycling is not only a green practice, but it is also a “practice of resistance to predominantly and excessively motorized non-green culture,” which is one of his harder points to justify, as, even among environmentalists, it is hard to tell whether people are biking as a form of resistance or simply as a moral decision to not contribute to the pollution that automobiles create.  The main problem with his assertions is that it is a mildly long article and he restates a lot of the same points, so through his constant reassertions he adds some sense of redundancy and makes us question the strength of his claims, as if they are strong they should only need to be stated once or twice.

            One of the strongest points of this article is its abundance of evidence.  He relies very little on his own personal experiences and avoids anecdotes, which may be drier than is preferable.  He makes up for this, however, by constantly citing articles and novels by other people who have considered the bicycle to be extremely important; he cites John Ryan, who says that the bicycle is one of “the seven sustainable wonders of the world” and many other authors who have similar opinions (Horton 44).  In his first body paragraph he also uses history as an example; specifically he uses the freedom that bicycles gave to women in the late 19^th century, the aid it provided the socialist movement in the mid-20^th century, and began to be important in the early environmental movement in the late-20^th century.  However almost more than anything else he uses statistics to support his claims.  His provision of so many statistics greatly strengthens his claims, as numbers tend to be right. 

            The author himself, David Horton, is a professor of Environmental Public Policy at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.  It can be assumed then, that although he may have a personal bias, he is very well educated in the topic of environmentalism, and so he must also has a very strong professional opinion on the matter, and from this it can also be assumed that the facts he presents are true, and the arguments valid.  It is doubtful that his intended audience is the people he is writing about: environmental activists who ride bicycles as a symbol of their position and as a way to promote their position.  That being said, this article is most likely aimed towards those who understand environmental concerns but take very little action, and to people who don’t completely disregard the environment, but who think little of what they can do to stop the destruction of it.  One of the ways in which Horton targets this audience is to illuminate some of the benefits of cycling such as: better physical fitness, reduction in worldwide obesity, more social interaction, and the fact that it is practical for those who wish to engender change in or resist the current societal norm of automobile dependence.  This method is very effective simply because it shows readers that the bicycle is not limited to being a “green materiality,” it can also be very beneficial on an individual and cultural level.

            Horton’s tone in this article is very academic.  Although he believes strongly in everything he says, his writing retains a sense of calmness, as if he were simply explaining his position to a curious inquirer.  This tone greatly enhances his ability to make a point because he stays focused throughout the article and does not stray from his point due to an angry outburst about saving the environment, or make side comments to try to be funny; he simply sticks to his points, argues them out as fully, and with the best reason possible until his point reaches its conclusion, by which time it is a very strong and convincing argument.  Not only this, but he does not treat the ideas he is arguing against, namely the widespread use of cars and other automobiles, sarcastically; he never condescends towards the automobile, he only puts forth reasons for which its use should be discontinued and devalued, and usually does this simply by making a case for his own side, instead of simply bashing the side he is arguing against.  And so in some ways his tone conveys a sort of tranquil feeling of understanding he has for other points of view.  He does not condemn those who do not ride bicycles for the sake of resistance, he says that “Obviously the bicycle is not always and everywhere political” which goes along with his academic tone, as if he is simply trying to teach a concept to a class (Horton 55).

            He structures the essay in a way that is very easy to follow: every time he makes a major shift in ideas, he gives this new section a heading.  His main points don’t seem to necessarily follow from one point to another; he simply goes through and makes point after point, each point separately supporting his thesis, but not relying on each other for that support.  He smartly organizes the article so that he begins with historical references to the bicycle’s importance in society and societal changes, and then begins to focus on contemporary considerations for the bicycle’s environmental importance.  This is definitely the best way to go about it, as it is best to get all the historical references out of the way so that he is not jumping back and forth between contemporary factors and historical ones.  Outside of this the structure of it is loose as a result of his points not be codependent and this makes his article’s ideas flow quite well and quite rapidly, as they are not being bogged down by a complex structure.

            His conclusion restates many of his points in a concise way, but also finally addresses the fact that “many more people will need to get on their bikes if cycling technologies are to become dominant” and really gives some finality to all the points he has made (Horton 53).  Although the majority of this article is about bicycles in the lives of environmentalism, it definitely carries a lot of importance for bicycles in the lives of the general population, as it addresses many of the benefits of cycling and the disadvantages of the automobile dependent culture which is predominant throughout the world today.  He makes a great argument for the environmental importance of the bicycle and does it in a very easy to follow and convincing manner, one which should leave readers with a sense of responsibility towards the environment which will hopefully lead them to change their personal beliefs about environmentalism and lead them to take action by starting to bicycle as a more practical method of travel, as well as a symbolic and political statement.

Point of View

Why Bikes Are Important

            In today’s society bicycles seem to have very little real importance to the general population; most people do not use them for purposes other than recreational ones and those that do are likely a dying breed.  As population and city sizes become more and more distended, there will be farther and farther distances to travel to get where one needs to go.  This, however, is not the case yet, and most cities are not so large that the average person couldn’t ride a bicycle to get to work, go to the gym, or any number of other things.  Even so, most people still drive cars and ride buses (although buses and public transportation in general are definitely the lesser of the two evils) anywhere and everywhere they need to go, even when it is no more than a couple miles.  This should not still be happening when we know that driving cars pollutes, and until the purely electric car is perfected, bicycles should be the preferred method of travel for inter-city travel; they are extremely efficient in getting places and don’t pollute, so they should be the standard method of travel until we have a completely, or almost completely clean car being driven by at least a large minority of the population.

            People have all kinds of excuses for not riding bikes.  First of all we’re always told that making excuses is wrong, even sometimes when we have a legitimate excuse for a failure or a failure to do something.  In the case of biking there should be no excuses besides those of physical incapability, a ride that would be too hard or too far away, or if one does not have a bike—which is a problem easily remedied by buying a bike, or renting a bike if one has the luxury of being a UNC Asheville student or a student of any of the other numerous colleges with bike rental options.  Aside from these excuses (and I’m sure there are exceptions that I haven’t thought of) there is no good reason not to be riding a bike.  Even if it isn’t every day, riding a bike once or more a week, and progressively increasing that amount, instead of driving a car is better than not riding a bike at all.  I would be willing to bet that the largest group of people who don’t ride bikes to get places don’t ride them because they feel like it takes too long or that they don’t have the time, but this is so wrong; when I lived in Chapel Hill I could bike to a friend’s house and get there just a few minutes after my friends who drove very similar distances.

            Many people are against using bikes as their standard method of travel because they believe that driving is quicker by a large factor.  This is absolutely untrue (inter-city driving once again) and should never be used an excuse.  According to Google Maps it takes about ten minutes to get from UNC Asheville’s campus to the Orange Peel if driving.  It also calculates that a bike trip to the Orange Peel will take about twenty minutes, and even though this is definitely an overestimate, it still proves the same point: five, ten, fifteen, and even twenty minutes are relatively insignificant amounts of extra time to spend travelling and should never be used as excuses to drive instead; all it requires is waking up ten minutes earlier, showering faster, or simply just getting out the door a few minutes earlier than normal.  Even the bus would take about fourteen minutes according to Google Maps, and this doesn’t include the time spent waiting for the bus, which in my experience tends to be at least a few minutes.

            The U.S.A. also has tremendous health issues, mostly obesity, and in almost every case the best cure for obesity is exercise.  A fifteen or even ten minute ride to and from one’s workplace every Monday through Friday will drastically improve that person’s  overall health, even if they don’t do much other exercise.  This is a benefit that cannot possibly be understated, as it would probably greatly help our nation’s overall obesity problem if more people started travelling by bike over a long period of time as it is an aerobic exercise and aerobic exercises tend to be better for a person’s overall fitness, especially when done daily for several months.  It has also been proven that exercise is good for the brain, so not only would this help people physically, it would help them mentally; it would help to increase job productivity, overall happiness (exercise has become a major part of contemporary depression treatment), and just be healthy for the brain on a purely biological or physical level.

            One of the most important benefits from a countrywide shift to biking would be a drastic reduction of the greenhouse gases produced by cars and buses, and global warming would probably slow down a little bit as a result.  This would by no means stop global warming in its tracks, and it might even have a relatively small impact when compared with the big polluters, but a lot of times what it takes to get a large change made in society is a small shift that gets people rolling, and then the shift gets bigger and bigger until real, visible progress has been made and the old way of living dies out; not to mention the fact that, as with things like voting and donations, in the end a lot of difference can be made through small, but widespread, individual contributions to a cause.  I think it is really clean-fuel using cars that will engender the real change, but it may be that a shift to bikes causes the big car manufacturers to realize that a change does need to be made so that clean energy cars can be used by everyone for the sake of the environment, and people’s wallets (gas is getting very expensive). 

            On the topic of wallets and people’s money, bicycles are probably the most cost effective form of transportation, unless a town has a bus system that is free for all its users.  A cheap car that won’t break down five minutes after you start driving it will usually cost at least one thousand dollars, and this is a very low estimate, whereas anyone could buy a cheap bike for around one hundred or two hundred dollars, and even less than that if there’s a ReCYCLEry somewhere around their town.  That doesn’t even include the fact that there’s no gas to pay for with a bike, which saves anyone who drives at all a considerable amount of money.  And if a bike has a mechanical problem it is very easily and cheaply replaced at any bike store and it is very easy to learn basic bike maintenance: changing a tire, changing a tube, putting a chain on, putting a new seat on, etc.  The opposite is true about a car; if a car breaks down it is not an easy or cheap fix and car maintenance is a lot harder than bike maintenance, even if all that’s required is a tire change.

            So bikes are cheaper, easier, greener, healthier, and only slightly more time consuming than cars.  In this case the pros definitely and greatly outweigh the cons (con in this situation) and there are relatively few people that have legitimate reasons to not be riding a bicycle for most of their transportation needs.  Overall the benefits of a nationwide shift to non-recreational biking would be priceless and would greatly help us move forward as a nation, in terms of our pitiful health, our mildly pitiful (but getting much better) contribution to green energy, and would help the average person cut down their cost of living.  Thus we should not hesitate to make a shift to using bikes as a main source of transportation; it has the potential to make a big difference in the world today.

Personal Narrative

I’ve known how to ride a bike for about 10 years, and throughout my childhood and most of my teens I’ve used biking simply as a way of getting around, but I never really got a ton of enjoyment out of it.  In the end I really just rode to get places.  That being said, my love of bikes and biking most definitely begun when, about a year ago, I decided that I should get a new bike of my own; for many years I’d been riding my sister’s bike because it worked and I only rode to get where I needed to go anyway, but once senior year came I realized I would need one for when I went to college.  So I began my fruitless search for a bike that was cheap and still worth buying (not a piece of a crap.)  I spent a whole month trying to find one without any luck.  But it just so happened that my friend had recently bought a new fixed-gear bike, something I was completely unfamiliar with.  At the time he bought it I thought nothing of it until I was at his house one weekend and I rode it. I absolutely loved it.  I decided right away that a fixed-gear bike was exactly what I had been looking for: a bike that’s actually fun to ride but still very functional.  I told my dad about my plan because he knew a lot about bikes and had been helping me with my search occasionally, and he came up with the idea to take his old racing bike to the bike shop and convert it.  Naturally I loved the idea and we took it to the bike store almost immediately.  I spent two weeks waiting more anxiously than I’ve ever waited for anything before.  The day it was ready I went to the store right after school and picked it up, and the second I got home I started riding it and fell in love with it even more than I had with my friend’s bike; it rode more smoothly than any other bike I had ever ridden, I could go extremely fast, and slow down at will without even using brakes.  I started riding it to school, riding it after school, riding to friends’ houses even when I could get a ride, and as the year moved on I started going on several hour (you put a dash between these in your corrections, but I mean it like the length of the rides was several hours) long bike rides, just for the sake of riding the bike.          

All this bike riding had made me become extremely attached to my bike and I began to take a great interest in all the things that made my bike work: all the little pieces I didn’t take much notice of before became mystical objects in my mind, things I revered above anything else because they were the reason I was able to ride this magnificent amalgamation of metal parts, all working together perfectly (sometimes), taking me wherever I wanted to go.  All of this, as great as it sounds (to me at least), was very superficial, and I really knew very little about my bike’s working parts.  My knowledge remained superficial until soon enough I wanted to take back every single good thing I ever said about the bike; all those mystical objects began to malfunction and instead of working together perfectly for me, they begun to work together perfectly against me.  It was this frustration that was really the catalyst for my wanting to really learn how my bike worked.  I started studying up on the internet and started fine-tuning it, getting closer and closer to the perfection I sought every week, and all this bike maintenance was getting me really interested in bikes in general, not just my own. 

This interest would probably not have gone anywhere, knowing me (I’m just so lazy), if not for my high school’s service-learning graduation requirement. I had twenty hours completed out of twenty-five required, and it was already April.  The deadline for seniors to turn in documentation was May.  My parents were hassling me about it and I knew I needed to find something quickly, but I was rooted firmly in the belief that I should volunteer for a cause I actually cared about and was enjoyable to me (picky, I know.)  I couldn’t find a single volunteering opportunity that satisfied both of these requirements, simple as I thought it would be, until I came across a local charity organization known as the ReCYCLEry.  On further inspection I found out that it was an organization whose “original idea was to collect and repair old bikes to give away to children, teaching the children bicycle maintenance as well as self-confidence, responsibility and a sense of community.  This concept quickly spread to adults as well, and developed the ReCYCLEry into a cornerstone of the local community.”  After reading their self-description I knew that this was exactly what I had been looking for; they were providing an invaluable service to the community simply by donating bikes to people in need. And not only this, but they were helping people of any age learn about bikes, not to mention the fact that more bikes means less cars, and less cars means less pollution. In the end though what really attracted me personally was the idea that I could learn more about bikes while getting my service-learning hours done and that the service was one I really believed would help our community.  I signed up for the next available session; it was five hours long and I loved every minute of it.  The owner, Rich, was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I was astounded by the large number of people who came to help, all of whom were extremely nice and helpful, too.  And the five hour session meant that I was done with my service-learning hours for high school, but where usually I would have celebrated by never going back, I celebrated by going back for almost all of the weekend sessions throughout the summer which really solidified my newfound feelings for the local biking community and for the ReCYCLEry in general.  Towards the end of the summer, I realized that I would get very few chances to go back anymore, because I was moving to Asheville and my parents to Washington, D.C., so the likelihood of me being in Chapel Hill and being able to go help out became very very low.  And then I found out that there is a ReCYCLEry in Asheville (which, in hindsight, shouldn’t have been all that surprising).  I suddenly felt so much better about being in Asheville, like I could become part of that great community in Chapel Hill all over again.

Service Learning Journal 3

I've been trying to keep going regularly to the ReCYCLEry, but they usually don't have much for me to do or I don't have the time to go for a very long time, so I haven't been getting many hours.  But in the time I have been going, I've mainly been helping them reorganize their shop: moving bike frames around to make space, throwing old or unusable things away, and generally cleaning up.  Even though it's what I'd like to be doing, I can't really help people work on their bikes because I don't know nearly enough to be qualified to help people, but I've been trying to help people find parts they need or if they do have a problem I can fix I try to do it for them so they don't have to wait a long time for help.  Besides that I haven't really done much else different, but hopefully I'll be able to have more interesting things to do as time goes by.

First ReCYCLEry Shift

I rode my bike over to the ReCYCLEry right next to the Orange Peel on Saturday to do my first real volunteer shift there.  I got there right when they were opening it an right from the start the guys running it couldn't really think of much for me to do.  In the end I sorted some stuff out, cleared off some tables to make space for the clutter (they have a lot of stuff laying around in a small space), and they had me put some coins into coin rolls, and then sort out the rest of their money (weird experience).  Since they didn't have much for me to do I left a little bit earlier than I planned since I figured if I came back another day there'd be more stuff to do, but while I was there it was definitely really cool.  All kinds of people came in and the guys working seemed to know most everyone and they were really chill and fun to hang out with, so it made the slowness of the volunteering go by a lot quicker and they seemed pretty happy to have someone volunteering for them, so in the end it was a pretty good volunteering day.