<p>My son is a fairly serious recreational biker and is working (full-time and sometimes overtime) at a bike store this summer. He is headed to his first year at college this fall; the school is within two hours of our home.</p>
<p>The boy would like to take advantage of his substantial employee discount to buy himself a much upgraded (fairly top of the line but not professional – but he gets to purchase it for less than half price) bike this summer. We have told him OK as long as he has **first **saved his school year spending money. </p>
<p>He is hoping to take a bike to college – either his old one or the new one.</p>
<p>Questions:</p>
<p>IMO it is unreasonable to expect a roommate to be OK with a bike in the room, considering typical dorm room space constraints.
Son is hoping his roomie will *also *be bringing a bike and that they can share some sort of “minimal space” (LOL ;))
in-room bike rack for two bikes that my son will provide. (No notice so far on roommate assignment.)</p>
<p>I suspect the odds of a random roomie having that agenda are about 1 in 10. (Son anticipated 6 in 10.) What percentage of kids do bring bikes to college, do you estimate?</p>
<p>I would rather he take the old bike to college and store it wherever the school allows bikes to be secured - some sheltered public bike rack, perhaps? Then the new bike can be kept in our garage for when he is home. IF he ever wants it for a special biking trip at college, we could bring it to his school for him. (We would be able to visit him whenever he wants.)</p>
<p>I told him I would start this thread for other suggestions/input.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>P.S. He will be an engineering major and unlikely to have oodles of free time during the semester. He also runs and hopes to join the campus running group. He will be doing pep and concert bands as well.</p>
<p>The odds of a roommate with a bike depend on the college. I would think a larger campus would increase the need for a bike and the odds that someone else would have one. Regardless, I think your guess on the odds are a lot closer than your son’s.</p>
<p>A bike in the room solves the problem of it being stolen when he’s in the room. Is he planning to only use it for exercise/recreational riding/training? Never use it to go to class etc? Because it has just as good a chance of being stolen from outside the classroom building as outside his dorm.</p>
<p>In that case, I would def take a beater bike, not a new top-of-line.</p>
<p>If you live near enough to visit “whenever”, I’d suggest he actually move in without it (or without either bike). He can take the pulse of his roommate and you can bring it if it’s going to work. Lord knows, lots of guys could care less re room decor/ambience. So if they can both move around, roomie may be okay with it</p>
<p>He should only take a bike to college for general purpose use around campus if he is OK with having the bike stolen or trashed. Trashing a row of bikes is a not uncommon pass time of college student drunks at some schools.</p>
<p>Take the old bike. Play it by ear from there on the new bike. If he want it for training rides, maybe there’s a athletic department storage facility he can use.</p>
<p>Take the old bike. If he’s storing it in his dorm room, make sure he keeps it on his side of the room and out of the way of the roomate–common courtesy. Don’t bring the new bike because it’s sure to get stolen.</p>
<p>I think for use around campus, his old bike might be best. If he wants his better bike to go on recreational rides away from campus, he may want to wait a semester to find out where there is secure locked storage or where he can use a very secure locking device and keep it. It may be possible. </p>
<p>Not sure what college “drunks” has to do with this. </p>
<p>Some dorms might have facilities for the bikes. My D had very expensive ski equipment that went into locked storage at the athletic center. I just don’t know what is available for your son for an expensive bike to be stored. </p>
<p>What kind of bike is he considering (this is not relevant but just asking). My husband grew up with a close pal who built bikes and started his own bike company which I believe are professional bikes. Serotta.</p>
<p>Take the old bike, lock it to the bike racks outside the dorm. I noticed at S1’s big state u., there were lots of bikes without seats. I’m assumimg that the kids took the seats into their dorms for safe keeping. I guess the bad guys are less likely to try to steal a bike with no seat!</p>
<p>A common bond among all universities seems to be bike theft. Even if your S can manage to keep it in his room at night he’ll likely still want to ride it around and leave it at other locations on campus where it’s now vulnerable to theft.</p>
<p>He should take his old bike. If he can keep the bike in the room and plans to only use it for weekend road rides as opposed to around campus, then taking the new bike might make sense.</p>
<p>He could look into renting a bike by the hour or day from a local bike shop when he wants to do long training rides. My husband’s bicycle team went to a ride out in California in May and rented bikes there from a local bike store. They got measured and sized for bikes the day before the ride. Most riders brought their own pedals (that clipped to their shoes) and helmets and other basic stuff like jerseys, gloves, shoes. Maybe he could communicate now with a bike store near campus to coordinate this. The nice bikes are very expensive and I worry about my husband’s bikes being secure in our garage or when my husband transports it. I definitely wouldn’t take a nice bike to a campus.</p>
<p>^^ Excellent suggestion which had not occurred to me.</p>
<p>THANKS SO much for the feedback. I will send him to this thread when he gets back from work tonight. (He works until after closing, about 9:30 p.m.)
Feedback from someone other than his parents is very valuable!</p>
<p>Soozievt, I do not know the brand of bike he is considering (am not into this myself, although it would certainly do me some good. ;)) but will ask him.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I will warn him about you. (post #11)</p>
<p>Again, thanks ALL, for the very helpful responses.</p>
<p>Find out what kids at the college, in the dorms tend to do about bikes. Your son is probably involved in an on-line group via Facebook or the college itself that can answer personal questions like that. </p>
<p>My feeling is that an old bike splashed with some wild paint colors is the safest bet. But, ya know, my kid had to lose his bike to undestand that one.</p>
<p>I agree with the old bike. My son had two bikes stolen at college, and both were older, cheap bikes. And he did have them locked with what were supposed to be strong locks. As for storing it in the room, only if he has a big room and a willing roommate–not that likely to happen…</p>
<p>“Trashing a row of bikes is a not uncommon pass time of college student drunks at some schools.” seems self-explanatory on the question of whether to take a $1000+ bike to college.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from a student newspaper that may help to better visualize the relevance:</p>
<p>What is your son planning to do with his bike?</p>
<p>The folks (I know) who buy really, really nice bikes don’t actually use these bikes for transportation, ever. That would be a tremendous waste of a very high quality bike. They go train on it, enter competitions, race, do recreational biking, etc… But they wouldn’t ever go somewhere and leave the bike outside.</p>
<p>If this is what your son is planning to do, then it makes sense to bring it with him and put it in his room. Also, a bike doesn’t necessary take up that much room. Presumably, he’ll have half the room in the dorm room, so he’ll be able to intelligently rearrange so that he’ll have somewhere to put it.</p>
<p>If he’s planning to use a bike to ride to class or anywhere else, forget bringing a nice bike. Bring the oldest, least expensive bike you can find. And even then, it’s a terrible idea to leave it overnight in any public area.</p>
<p>Echoing the refrain: take the old bike. S took one of two bikes we had that weren’t in use…but they were in good condition.</p>
<p>1st one was stolen but bit by bit until all that was left was the frame. He has since retrieved bike #2. Luckily, he’s able to keep it in a more secure location than freshman/sophomore dorms and has not had problems with this one.</p>
<p>Also, depending on the dorm, it is highly unlikely there will be ANY extra space for a bike (let alone 2) to be stored there. Plus doing so could be a major hassle, ie dealing with stairs, elevators, etc.</p>
<p>However, I would encourage your son to go ahead and use his discount to buy the bike he wants. He may not be working in a bike shop again with this type of discount. It really will be a long term investment. Kind of like our S did with his kayak. He’s not using it at the moment, but does when he comes home. It never goes out of style…</p>
He also runs and hopes to join the campus running group. He will be doing pep and concert bands as well.</p>