I run my life by efficiency, meaning if something isn’t quick enough or productive enough, I cut it out of my existence. Taking more than ten minutes to eat a meal? Absolutely not. Planning out my day hour-by hour the night before? You better believe it. Casually strolling to class? I’ll be the first to blaze past every slow walker on campus.
If we’re judging our college lives by how much they resemble well-oiled machines, mine is one of those fancy lawn mowers that cuts your grass in five seconds or less. I feel pretty proud of this most of the time. But in my speed-walk to Jennings each morning, I sometimes feel a slight breeze as another student somehow passes me, which I think to myself must be an impossible feat since I’m basically the walking Flash. That is until I see the spin of two thin tires cruising past me and the stress-free demeanor of a student hopping off as he or she reaches the building in a matter of seconds, leaving me in the dust. If their lives are well-oiled machines, they’re a Bugatti.
Not to mention, these bikes are also literally well-oiled. I really didn’t stand a chance.
“Why doesn’t everyone ride a bike?” I asked my friend Lyndsey last semester. “Everyone on campus could sleep more each night or spend longer getting ready in the morning just by not having to walk to class.”
“I’ve always thought that,” she responded passionately. And at that moment, Lyndsey and I made a pact, in the name of efficiency and an invaluable extra ten minutes of sleep, to purchase bikes of our own.
***
“I saw a bunch of bikes on campus that were just being abandoned and left,” said Garrett Veazey, junior Christian studies major. “I thought, ‘we could do something with those. They don’t need to just be sitting around.’”
Last semester, Veazey and professor of engineering Georg Pingen began the Bike Recycling Club, which meets every weekend and every other Monday night in the BAC garage. Rows of orphaned bikes and parts fill the space, a donated tool bench stationed in the back corner topped with a speaker playing Zac Brown Band and Chris Stapleton, all riddled with the background noise of wrenches dropping and the squeak of rusty kickstands being fixed.
The Bike Recycling Club both sells and repairs bikes, all for a very affordable price for the average college student’s bank account. The proceeds from the club go toward purchasing mountain bikes for students who are taking Union’s mountain biking class but who don’t have the resources to either purchase a new bike or bring their bike from home. The club also raised money last year to add new signs to the Union trails.
“When I was in sixth grade, I started a business at my summer camp and made 90 bucks throughout the week selling snacks,” Veazey said. “I’ve always loved starting businesses and taking it and running with it, starting from the ground up. Since I’m going into ministry, I think it’d be really cool to church plant, to start from the ground up with a church.”
The banter of two other members of the club, Michael Drury and Ben Fuller, caused us to pause and laugh. I turned to see Fuller repairing a hole in one of the bike’s tires.
“I’ve always fixed stuff in general with my dad,” Veazey said. “We would fix bikes, we would fix go-carts. If I broke something in the house, he would be like, ‘Well, you’re going to have to fix that.’ It was fun because it was a bonding time but also a learning experience. I just kind of put all of those together here in this bike club.”
The club serves not only the community, but also the club members themselves, since meeting in the workshop and the friendships that have naturally formed between the members have resulted in a place to release stress from school while still working with their hands to create something tangible. After all, the payoff of completing a homework assignment isn’t always as life-giving.
Before the February monsoon began on Union’s campus, all of the members of the club decided to go for a ride together, enjoying the last beautiful day before the rains came.
“We’ll go and ride the trails together…” Veazey paused to roast Fuller for not having his mountain bike on campus to ride with them on the trails. Drury took over the cause of convincing him as Veazey turned back to me. “So yeah. I definitely want biking to be a thing on campus.”
I stood in the shop with Lyndsey, who still remained faithful to the verbal contract we made months ago to become two more of those wise students who have forever improved their lives by simply replacing their two feet with two wheels. Veazey handed us a couple of bikes, one red and small-ish, the other long and yellow, both with little brown baskets. Time for a test ride.
You know that old saying about how you never forget how to ride a bike? Yeah, that’s not altogether true, and I didn’t realize it until I hopped on the long, yellow bike and nearly toppled over. Lyndsey wasn’t doing much better. It took her a few minutes to pop up her kickstand. (Disclaimer: It wasn’t Lyndsey’s fault. Turns out some rust just needed to wiped off. Enter Veazey with the fix).
It kind of felt like a long-time dream had been fulfilled, like when an author finishes the book she’s been working on for years. We were biking, albeit on the wrong side of the road (which we didn’t realize until we were face-to-face with headlights and death), but we didn’t feel like slackers using our feet anymore.
“That bike looks good on you,” I told Lyndsey.
“I know,” she replied.
After a moment of sheer, unadulterated freedom in which Lyndsey exclaimed “Who should we visit!?” and we visited all of our friends to strut around on our new rides (if you can strut on a bike, which I feel like you can), we landed back at the garage, regretfully handing back the steeds that led us into such sweet liberation.
We told Veazey that the red one felt like it had less resistance, so we liked it better.
“It must be the sprocket size,” he said.
“Oh yeah, the sprocket size. I told Emma the same thing,” Lyndsey said.
The three of us laughed. We knew who the real professionals were.
