Where did BicirrUN run off to?

BicirrUN was a program of free public bicycles for use on the Bogotá' campus of Colombia's National University. The Bogotá campus, formally called the 'University City,' is huge, so walking between classes can take time.

BicirrUN, begun in 2006, consisted of some 300 bicycles (at a time) distributed across the campus. These were simple one-speeds (the campus is flat) with only one brake and often just a cable in place of the lower tube and were left in bike racks and by building entrances so that people could grab them and ride to their destinations, where they left them for someone else.

Besides saving time and (human) energy and popularizing cycling, the university bikes program also served as a template for a possible city-wide public bicycles program.

The project was Bogotá's third large experiment for promoting cycling, following the Ciclovia and the Cicloruta bike path system. It could be seen as a pilot for a possible municipal public bicycle system. Unfortunately, so far it has failed.

Unfortunately, in 2009 the program was folded and the bikes placed in deep storage below the university's nursing building. According to reports, the program cost too much - some of the bikes disappeared and many more were damaged by people doing things like going down stairs and leaping from rocks. It became unsustainable.

Fortunately, administrators are looking for a way to restart BicirrUN. They've talked about an education campaign and/or requiring users to check out their bikes, like library books.

How could the program be made viable?

An electronic credit card-type system is just out of reach because of cost.

And having people check out bikes for 20-minute periods also seems impractical. The university would need an army of monitor to administer the system.

But what if bikes were checked out for 24-hour periods? Users might also receive locks, or have to bring their own. Such a system might also permit students to take the bikes of campus, so that they'd become commuter vehicles as well. In case of damage or loss, the user would be required to pay the costs or lose the right to participate in the system.

Another note: Lots of National University students and faculty bring their own bikes onto campus. The campus is crowded with entrepeneurs who rent cell-phones, sell food, pirated music and other stuff. So, why hasn't anybody thot of creating a bike repair shop or stand on campus?

In Bogotá Bikes are More than Bikes

Lots of boxes!

In Bogotá, Colombia, the bicycle isn't just for personal transport and recreation - it's also a cargo vehicle, a family SUV/station wagon - even a place of business.
(By Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours) 

iThumbs up for two kids on two wheels.

Going and bringing bananas

Pedaling empanadas.

Push them potatoes! Some carry as many as six 100-pound potato sacks!

Juggling boxes

Biblical bike

On the way home.

This mom don't need no SUV.

Newspapers and candy for sale.

A bike with five 100-lb 'arrobas' of potatoes.

Here comes the soda.

Twin transport.

Wednsday Night Bike Tours

Every Wednesday night (every other when school is on) dozens or hundreds of cyclists meet at 6:45 p.m. at the Welcome bike shop on Calle 92 and Carrera 11, in north Bogotá, and then head out for a good-natured Ciclopaseo de los Miercoles. The Ciclopaseos usually last several hours and pass through some obscure and even sketchy parts of the city.

The best thing about the rides is the celebration of cycling in mass, as well as a cycling demonstration of bicycle power! They are the nearest thing Bogotá has to its own Critical Mass.

This week, the Ciclopaseo visited Bogotá Bike Tours.

Forget About Carbon Fiber!

Dario, a Colombian native, has bicycle toured for about three years on his light, mean machine, complete with a four burner electric stove, a beer crate full of belongings and a bulletin board of newspaper articles tacked on the back. Each place he goes, he works in painting or repairing shoes to pay his way to the next place. 'It's the best way to see the country,' he said.

Dario's spent three years traveling and pedaled to Brazil and plans to go to Ecuador.

 

This blog by Mike Ceaser of Bogota Bike Tours

The Shortsighted National Bicycle Congress

It's time for the National Congress of Bicycles, when everybody working in the industry - or at least the manufacturers and retailers - get together to - market more bicicletas!

The bicycle industry appears to carry real economic weight in Bogota - go down Jimenez Ave. and you'll find the city's 'bicycle row' - many blocks crowded mostly with bike shops, and many businesses, including some big ones such as beer companies, use bikes or tricycles to do deliveries. Yet, bikes aren't very visible in advertising. Open the paper or turn on the TV, and it's all about cars, cars, cars (and tobacco and liquor).

However, the biggest failing of the industry, it seems to me, is the lack of notable efforts to promote a cycling culture. Related to this, I suspect, is Colombia's unequal distribution of wealth - a lot of people (over 40 %) are poor, and a small proportion are very, very rich. And Colombians are very class conscious!

Many low-income people ride bikes to work, or for work, just because it saves them money. But the bicycle industry takes them for granted. These people HAVE TO buy bikes. And, anyway, they use cheap or used bikes, which generate small profit margins, if any at all. Rather, it's the rich who buy the pricey, high-margin Treks, Cannondales and aluminum frame bikes. This is the expanding market and the one retailers chase after.

But these cyclists don't ride their bikes to work: Don't be silly! That makes you look like a poor person! These folks drive their cars to work and then load the bikes onto them on weekends for a pedal around the countryside.

So, what we really need here are more cars to load those bikes onto.

Call the bike industry's focus on selling short-term thinking. Perhaps someday Bogota could be like Portland, San Francisco or Amsterdam, with reams of yuppies pedaling to work on their Dahons. But that's a long way off. So, why bother to work toward it?

Looking at the Bicycle Congress's agenda, I see talks by economists, a bicycle race announcer, an expert in customer relations. I see nothing about transit or commuting - which is natural, if these bikes are never intended to touch an urban road.

Bamboo Bikes Come to Colombia!

The new wave in bike manufacture is one of the oldest building materials known to humanity - bamboo! 

Bike builders say that bamboo has great flexibility and strength characteristics, which mean bamboo can turn into all sorts of bikes, including even high-preformance racers. Now it turns out that someone in Medellin is building bicicletas de bambu. It'll be nice if someone finally starts building hi-performance bikes in Colombia, particularly if they're made from an environmentally-friendly material.

It'll be even better, however, if someone starts making practical cargo and basic transport bikes out of bamboo. It's being done in Africa. Why not here?

This blog written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

Steal my Bike!

The other day at Bogota Bike Tours we negligently left a bike outside, leaning against the wall. Predictably, someone came by and grabbed it and took off.

I rode around on my bike searching for the guy, but no luck. Where might a bike thief head? I rode down Jimenez Ave., which is one of Bogotá's 'bike shop rows.' Many stores there sell fancy new bikes - and a few sell nice used bikes at unreasonably low prices. Everybody knows that most of these bikes are stolen. (When I had first moved to Bogotá, I innocently went to one of these shops and bought a cheap bike. But when I took the bike to a nearby workshop to have it tuned up, the folks there informed me that it was most likely stolen. So I looked at the owner's card they'd given me and discoverd that the name on it was a (probably nonexistent) shop in Medellin. I took the bike back, and, by threatening them with troubles with the cops, got my money back. Then I bought a new bike, which got stolen soon after.)

So, I headed down to the stolen bike strip, where, lo and behold, one of the shopowners was standing in his doorway holding my bike, which he'd just purchased.

"This is my bike," I said, putting my hand on the handlebar.

"Well, I just bought it." He wasn't sympathetic.

"It was just stolen from me," I said, angry.

"If you want it, then pay me what I paid for it. 50,000 pesos (about $27.00)."

"You give it back to me," I insisted, "or you'll have trouble with the police. You shouldn't buy things which are stolen."

"Just take it," he relented with disgust.

A funny story, but also a pathetic one.  I read that in San Francisco, California, the police plan to do a sting operation, which will involve placing tracking devices in bikes to be used as lures. When those bikes get stolen, the cops will track them to find out who's fencing the stolen bikes.

Here in Bogotá we don't need a sting op with expensive tracking devices. I and lots of other people know exactly who is dealing in stolen bikes. Why don't the cops do anything?