Bikes

There’s still no better way to get around Black Rock City than on a bike. Bikes keep you light and mobile, and keep you eye to eye with everything going on around you. For the last eight years, Black Rock City’s Yellow Bike Project has provided hundreds of bikes for participant use, repaired them throughout the event, and after everything is over, packed them away for the following year.In 2013, the Yellow Bike Project was able to paint, build, and distribute more than 675 Yellow Bikes in Black Rock City for use by participants. Thanks to skillful reclamation efforts and a stepped up messaging campaign, more than 600 bikes were recovered at the end of the event, an all-time high for us. The rate of return has increased steadily each year, and really shows that little by little, more people are becoming aware of the program, and making use of it as it’s intended. And it’s a great sign that Black Rock City is a place where this sort of program can really thrive.

After the event, we collected well over 1,600 abandoned, functional bikes on playa during this year’s strike. Over 600 went to the Kiwanis Club, over 500 to the Reno Bike Project, 200 to Yellow Bike Works and another 100 were set aside for parts and for use in next year’s project. Not a single usable bike went to the scrapper.

In addition, 160 donated/retrieved Huffy Cranbrooks (the model of bike primarily used by the project) were absorbed into our fleet, which means we’ll have close to a 25% expansion in 2014, thanks to the community.

We are dedicated to helping this program continue to thrive, and helping Black Rock City be a place a place of community service, and a place where a ride is there when you need one…

Submitted by,
Logan Mirto