About 20 years ago, I developed a green bike program in a rural town of 5000 while managing a bike shop. Our position was: get butts on bikes. A few times a year, I would go to the big city and get a half dozen English three speeds or Schwinn cruisers at the flea market. The mechanics and I would fix them up and put placards in the front triangle explaining the program (basically asking people to not keep bikes more than 24 hrs and call us if the found one broken or abandoned).

Some people seemed to take(over) a bike. Others were broken or ghost ridden into destruction. Many survived, and we just kept adding to the fleet. After a couple of years there were enough bikes around and cycling culture had started to root among the locals (primarily through kids). Now there are so many bikes in the town, it has its own youth run community bike shop. Many other/bigger factors also contributed to the establishment of bike culture in this town, but 20 years later some of those bikes are still rolling around.

Throwing things against the wall to see what sticks is not the most efficient, but it is effective and in your case, free. Maybe a community bike org will spring up in the wake of the donation.

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 10:01 AM, Mark Rehder <mark@re-cycles.ca> wrote:

A decade or so ago many places tried what were called "yellow bike" programs (or whatever colour). Basically, paint a bunch of basic low-end bikes in a single colour and put them out for folks to use. I think pretty well every program eventually failed due to theft and misuse.

And wikipedia says this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_sharing_system)

"In this type of programme the bicycles are simply released into a city or given area for use by anyone. In some cases, such as a university campus, the bicycles are only designated for use within certain boundaries. Users are expected to leave the bike unlocked in a public area once they reach their destination. Because the bike is not required to be returned to a centralised station, ready availability of such bicycles is rare, and since unlocked bikes may be taken by another user at any time, the original rider is forced to find alternative transport for the return trip. Bicycle sharing programs without locks, user identification, and security deposits have also historically suffered large loss rates from theft and vandalism."

So I would suggest that while, as Matt wrote, it has the potential to get more folks interested in bikes, they may also end up despising them if your town starts filling up with the inevitable abandoned and broken bike carcasses.

Mark Rehder - Coordinator
re-Cycles Community Bike Shop
http://re-cycles.ca

On 2015-04-09, at 11:50 AM, Matt Brittenham-Jones wrote:

> I don’t think it will hurt the bike business at all, it may even help it as more bike availability may get more people interested in having a bike of their own.
>
> That said there is a very real likelihood that the “free bikes” will fall into disrepair, and become litter more than transportation if there is not a very well organized system in place to maintain them. It’s a worthwhile goal, but it takes a lot of work to get it right, and it’s very easy to get it wrong. 2 attempts in my small town failed. THe first because the bikes did in deed fall into disrepair remarkably quickly, and no one took responsibility for their upkeep. THe second project (the one I was involved in) simply lacked the volunteer involvement (or money) that would have been needed to get it off the ground.
>
> Matt

>
>
>> On Apr 9, 2015, at 11:38 AM, Beth Barnes <islow4bikes@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Could you weigh in, please. We have a small, remote rural town with no real bike/Ped infrastructure...yet. A group wants to introduce about 100 used bikes for people to use for free in an already ailing, small downtown. Free bikes? What will that do to local, struggling bike businesses? Bikes but no supporting infrastructure? Thank you for your thoughts. Makes little sense to me.
>> Beth
>>

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