Maverick Adventures hosts a bike workshop for Earth Month

Sunny weather — mixed with many students in dire need of post-winter bike maintenance — proved a fruitful combination for a bike tune-up workshop last week.

Maverick Adventures set up a bike tune-up workshop outside of the Otto Rec Center Thursday where anyone could bring their bike over and have it tuned-up for free.

Maverick Adventures members taught maintenance basics such as inflating tires, keeping chains clean and greased, checking brake cables and making sure seat positions are correct.

Assistant program coordinator for Maverick Adventures Madison Vandersee talked about how Earth month ties into this event.

“For Earth month, we really want to provide opportunities for people to learn more about either environmental issues or topics that they’re interested in. But especially for this one, we wanted to offer an opportunity for people to get outside and have options to get around campus without needing a vehicle,” Vandersee said. “So we want people to get their bikes in shape to use their own bikes, but then also learn how to maintain, and do some basic maintenance.”

Every year Maverick Adventures does more and more throughout Earth month. Since this is the third year, they have over 20 events going on throughout the month. They work with many different academic departments and Student Affair departments to make these events possible.

Program Coordinator for Maverick Adventures Sam Steiger said he was very enthusiastic about getting students outside for the month of April.

“The schedule is really great. It’s just got tons of opportunities for students to either learn something, meet new people, or make an impact,” Steiger said. “We’re just really trying to reach out to anyone who wants to do anything related to sustainability and in the outdoors and in the environment.”

These events include things like a field trip to Jeffers Petroglyphs, campus cleanup activities, a bike trip to the Blue Earth Community Farm, and much more.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a bike, the Maverick Adventures offers bikes for students to use during the biking events.

Steiger and Vandersee talked about the many reasons you should bike in Mankato. Obviously the amount of carbon emissions and fuel consumption prevented by biking is a big reason. They mentioned how the campus is very vibrant and beautiful, so biking around campus is a great way to get around, it also saves money if you don’t get a parking pass. They also said there’s many great biking trails around Mankato that make it fun to explore the city on a bike.

The bike repairs were mostly done by Evin Roddy, who works at the campus Rock Climbing wall and is a semi-pro mountain biker. He is also a supporter of the pro-bike lifestyle in Mankato.

“A very big part of bikes and why they’re so useful and why they’re so good is that bikes don’t take our limited fuel that we have on our planet. And so I think that more people on bikes means saving the earth one step at a time,” Roddy said.

Write to Jack Harding at jack.harding@mnsu.edu

Header Photo: Maverick Adventures invited students to bring in their bikes for a bike tune-up workshop outside the Otto Rec Center. (Davis Jensen/The Reporter)