Bicycle parts sprouted from the ground and trees alike yesterday on the walk from the Shapiro Camus Center to Usdan as part of Students for Environmental Action’s (SEA) event “Bike Bloom.”
The blooming bikes, accompanied by signs reading “put the fun between your legs” and “burn fat not gas,” were meant to remind students that spring weather is not only a break from the cold, but can also be a break from carbon emissions if students bike instead of drive.
“We want to get people on their bikes,” one of the event’s organizers Annie Chiorazzi ’11 said. “With such great weather, there’s almost no excuse.”
Chiorazzi said the event was timed just two days before April break in order to encourage students to get their bikes from home and bring them to Brandeis.
“A lot of people think since they haven’t ridden a bike since they were a kid, they won’t remember how,” Chiorazzi, who hasn’t ridden a bike since childhood, said. “But I tried it again today, and the expression ‘just like riding a bike’ comes from somewhere.”
SEA member Hannah Negami ’11, who helped organize the event, said it was created in order to “promote bike culture and cycling as a healthy and sustainable form of transportation.”
“Bikes are so sustainable, students should be riding them,” he said. “But I don’t know how many people know you can ride to Hannaford’s in ten minutes. We want to raise awareness about that.”
Bike Bloom is part of SEA’s ongoing campaign this year to educate students about how easy biking on campus and in Waltham can be.
While this event was meant to encourage students to bring their bikes to campus, another SEA event on April 10 will be held when students get back to school to show them how to bike around town.
The event, Tour de Waltham, will be a bike tour of the city from Brandeis to Prospect Hill which will show students shortcuts and ways to avoid main roads when biking.
The event will begin on the Great Lawn at 2 p.m. and will end at Prospect Hill with a picnic. Students without their own bikes are encouraged to use the bicycle rental program DeisBikes to join the Tour.
“A lot of why people don’t bike on campus is because there is a lack of knowledge of the area, they are nervous about biking on South Street or they don’t know where to store their bikes,” Chiorazzi said. “We want to clear that up for them so they want to ride.”
SEA member Matthew Schmitt ’11 agreed.
“People have the misconception that Waltham is hilly because Brandeis is,” he said. “But really, Brandeis is the only hill in Waltham, the rest of the city is flat.”
SEA also has a page on their Web site with information about where to buy bikes, bike safety and information, how to bike to Waltham or Boston, and how to box one’s bike.
Students can see for themselves at
