ADAM GRIPPO '13, BIKE SHOP MECHANIC:
So the Hendrix Bike Revolution started in 2006 or 2007 with a group of guys obviously
well above us. They started the Bike Share and they also began ... they got a tool
kit and worked on people's bikes for free. There wasn't any shop at that point it
was just kind of a word of mouth thing. The actual shop opened with Sean and Leahn
and Brenan in 2009 and then Michael and I took it over last year in 2010. So it's
been open, I guess in the current spot, for four years now. We met in the shop.
So my dad was real into cycling when he was in college, so he starting racing
so when I grew up we'd always go on bike rides; you know, as a family so I kind
of got interested in cycling that way and he was also a mechanic briefly so he knew
how to kind of work on bikes and just kind of working on family bikes I learned
a lot that way and then also I started racing myself so once that happened I had
I nice bike I needed to work on and as he, as Michael was saying, It's pretty expensive
to go to a shop to get them to do stuff. You can do a lot at home, which I quickly
discovered, and I've just really enjoyed it.
MICHAEL OTTENLIPS '14, BIKE SHOP MECHANIC:
Um...well I really started repairing bikes – my own bicycles – because it was
too expensive to bring them to the shops to fix them and we had, you know... really
modern bikes and you mainly need an Allen key to get started. We had a couple wrenches
around our house so that's kind of how I started; just tinkering with it on my own
and then just having my own problems trying to fix those, so I bought a little book.
and I came here and Sean and Leahn showed be a few things and then we started up
and kind of kept the ball rolling. Still learning a few things but I think we've
got it down pat.
My favorite part about working here... you just like, meeting people you would
never otherwise meet on campus. Like the most random people show up here. It ranges
from people I know super well to just like, "who are you?"
GRIPPO:
I'd say, as a general trend, I’ve seen the number of people go up. I'm not sure
if it's because of the shop or because the student body is growing but there's definitely
a lot more bikes on the racks now than there were four years ago.
Since I'm graduating this year, there are a lot of things that are, you know,
on the horizon. But I’d like to see a continued expansion of the rental fleet. I
feel like there is enough students checking out bikes that we could justify even
more than ten. Our club has been real inactive for a couple of years like we don't
really do much aside from the shop and the rentals. So I'm really hoping we can
get more students out riding like on organized rides by the students.