As has long been the case, Burning Man is a bike and pedestrian-oriented city… there’s no better way to get around the vast expanses of the playa than a sturdy bike. We strongly encourage people to light their trusty steeds WELL to avoid injury at night, and to be able to find your ride when you wander away from it in the dark.
We saw the usual number of abandoned bikes after big burns (please don’t do that – go find your bikes!), and at the end of the event, and these were donated to local charities. If you don’t want to lose your bike, lock it up wherever you leave it, but never lock it to an art installation or in a place where it creates a safety hazard – you might just return to it to find your lock cut.
Burning Man’s Yellow Bike program has been growing and improving since its inception in 2006, and we’re happy to report that fewer and fewer of them are being misused and stolen – but that requires everybody’s participation to make sure they’re treated as a helpful community resource, not as personal property. The team that works on construction, repair, and maintenance of the Yellow Bike fleet has become a well-oiled machine, and while there are still a few kinks that need to be ironed out, we anticipate that new policies will help with that starting in 2012.
Submitted by,
Erin McCool