Group to increase number of bikes for campus program

For students waiting for a fun and environmentally-friendly way to get around campus, a fleet of 28 gold, spray-painted bikes might be the next big thing.

The Environmental Conservation Organization will release a fleet of 20 Gold Bikes on Monday to add to the eight bikes they already have. The Gold Bike program, introduced to ECO members by Cameron Walker, started tentatively with the 2007 release of eight bikes to the University community.

The Gold Bike program seeks to provide a pool of second-hand cycles for use by the University community.

At first, the program was regulated and people who wished to participate were required to register. They were then given the combination to a bike lock to secure the bike on campus.

Walker, who graduated from the University in 2007, explained the desire to keep the bikes from getting stolen.

"Originally, we were trying to figure out how to keep the bikes around," he said. "We put a lot of time into [the program] even though we didn't put a lot of money into it. We ended up deciding we would do combination locks and all of them would have the same combination."

The release of the 20 new bikes will change all of this.

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