"Take a Seat" with Dominic Gill at USU- From Alaska to Ushuaia

It is winter in Logan, we are well aware of this at Aggie Blue Bikes. Our morning commutes seem to only be getting colder, so we are dreaming of more powder days on the slopes till spring hits and we can bike tour again.
To gear up for bike tour season we've just learned about an exciting event that USU is putting on that will get any one pumped to jump on their sweet ride and pedal into the sunset.
Dominic Gill, a native to the UK, is coming to USU on, Thursday, February 18 to speak about his two year adventure at the Eccles Conferences Center, room 205 at noon. Gill Road from Alaska to the southern most city of South America, Ushuaia, on a tandem. But Gill didn't do this journey with his best friend on the back. He picked up people along the way to pedal with him as he made his way down two continents.
This is one event you won't want to miss so come and have a listen to what a seasoned road warrior has to say about bicycles, people and living on the road. RSVP here
to learn more about Dominic Gill's adventure visit take a seat

It's a new year!

At Blue Bikes we look at new years as a chance to keep moving forward and making Blue Bikes a better place for students and faculty at USU.
We have added another user tool board, putting us at a total of three user tool boards, converted more bikes for three month check outs and moved into paperless check outs which is good for us and you.
This year we have also added community memberships to the list of things we are doing to improve Blue Bikes. What does this mean? If you are not a student or employee of Utah State University you can buy a year membership to Blue Bikes for $40. The membership includes unlimited use of the user tool boards, bicycle check outs, and educational classes. It's a pretty sweet deal for $40, undeniably sweet.
In other news... We will be having community weekly educational classes again this semester and we are introducing our first ever bike touring class. What does that mean? It means we, and two very seasoned bike tour veterans, will be educating you on the basics of bike touring, so that you too can see the world from behind the handlebars of a two wheeled love machine.
See ya on the road!

Bikes make the best Christmas presents

Looking for a Christmas present that doesn't break the bank, is sustainable, and a mode of transportation? Look no further ladies and gents, Aggie Blue Bikes is doing a little fund raising and you need a Christmas present for some one you love, or maybe yourself. Stop by Aggie Blue Bikes and pick up one of our two wheeled love machines to keep you going through all four seasons.
If you are worried about having enough of the green stuff to go around for all the people you love, including yourself, worry not, the price range of bikes starts at $50 and goes up to $120.00, so there is something for everyone. All the bikes are in road worthy and ready to ride into the sunset. The best part about buying one of the sweet rides we have is that you are helping Aggie Blue Bikes improve our program.
So come on down! We are open all next week Monday-Friday

Blue Bikes needs YOU to come check out a bike!

Good news Utah State cyber space! Aggie Blue Bikes has bikes available for three month check outs. How many, you may ask? 20 + bikes which means if you are reading this right now, you have a HUGE chance of getting a bike for the next three months. Thats three months of pure bicycle bliss for FREE. So what are you waiting for? Logan isn't getting any warmer and you need a way to get around town so don't wait any longer. Get your bones to Aggie Blue Bikes and get yourself a sweet ride to get you through the winter!
Think it's to cold to ride? Lies, we refuse to believe this. Although we do recommend that in the winter you slow it down, keep it real, and ride a little more cautiously, there is no reason to give up the bike just because old man winter has come around.
Now that you know whats new at Blue Bikes, come in and get yourself a sweet ride, we will be here with smiling faces to make all of your bike dreams come true.

In other news....

Last week was USU sustainability week and we got our first run with our NEW pedal powered PA system. Whoa, wait... a new one? No, the old one didn't break, we built a second one so we can power bigger and better concerts. We also built a second system because our first one was being showcased in Portland, Oregon at the Supercomputing conference with USU's High Performance Computing Department. Because we are so proud of our new and old system, here a few photos from the sustainability concert.

HEY LADIES! This Wednesday is your night! 6-8pm at our shop

If you haven't noticed, the cold doesn't scare us off our bikes. If anything we are more excited to ride. Why? Because it is more important for us to ride our bikes in the winter than at any other time of the year in Cache Valley. With those nasty inversions looming in the back of our minds, it's the little trips on the bike that count the most.
But enough of the preaching on air quality, This Wednesday, November 18 6-8pm is Ladies Night here in the shop. What exactly does that mean? Ladies only wrench night. If you are a lady and you want to learn about your bike, come and learn the things you need to know without the hassle of the guys hanging around. Don't know how to fix your bike at all? Well great! Thats why we want you to come! Don't wait around till your bike has crazy problems, work on it at Ladies Night. We promise it will be a good, education, and fun time for all the ladies that come. We can't promise the same for the fellas....

A website with a personal touch

We all live busy lives but the internet makes it easy for us to stay on top of what is going on around us. But when a website isn't user friendly, it doesn't make anything easier for anyone, and we know that at Aggie Blue Bikes. Thats why we have revamped our website to be as hassle free as our bike check outs and one-on-one tutorials are.
Our new website www.aggiebluebikes.org is so easy to use you might just want to ditch facebook for the day and explore our educational videos page or see what Aggie Blue Bikes is up to by taking a look at our events page. If you are unsure about what we offer to students, check out our student page and get the low down.
With recent changes to Aggie Blue Bikes, such as community memberships, we are adding pages so don't get up in arms if some of the pages aren't as navigatable as others, content is coming soon!
Take a look around at the site and stay hip on what is happening at Blue Bikes. You can still come into the shop and ask us what is going on, we like that a lot too.

Bike Week= SUCCESS!

We want to start this blog off by thanking all of you who participated, spread the word, and were supporters of the first annual USU Bike Week. We also want to give a shout out to our sponsors, Caffe Ibis, Shaffer House Bakery, Paradise Valley Orchards, Sunrise Cyclery and the UCC.

With that being said, why was bike week so great? We were able to reach out to lots of people through each of our activities that we had throughout bike week.
Monday, the 19th, when we kicked off the week with our chain lube and bike adjustment station we were able spread the good word of Blue Bikes to the unbelievers and lube a couple chains while we were at it.
Tuesday was a great day to learn bike maintenance and we had a great turn out to our class that was taught by Sunrise Cyclery. If you missed this bike maintenance class but you are dieing to know how to fix your bike, worry not. We will have more of these classes coming up.
Our pedal powered concert went off with a few hitches, like our inverter in the pedal powered system kicking the bucket. But it wasn't long till we had a new inverter and we were up and running with audience members pedaling their way to slimmer bums and carbon free music.
Bike to Campus day was our biggest event and we had lots of participants. Einstein Bagel's gave us so many bagels we were afraid we wouldn't be able to give them all away. But alas, the number of people who showed up shocked us all and we were able to give away all the food that was donated by local businesses. We were also able to spread the good word our pedal powered music making machine.

It was inspiring to see so many people on bikes supporting the effort to clean up Cache Valley's air. Seeing students, faculty, men, woman, hipsters, commuters, jocks, preps, and people from pretty much every walk of life, was a great experience. Everyone has the potential to be a bike rider, it's not just one type of person, it is everyone. If every person changed their mind set just a little bit and said, "from now on I will ride my bike instead of driving to the gym" or, "I will ride my bike to the bus stop and take the bus, with my bike, up to campus.", or "I will walk to the store that is 4 blocks from my house, instead of driving there every time I need a jug of milk or a loaf of bread." or, "I will car pool to church, school, and if possible work."
Small changes make the biggest differences to future generations, our own lives, and maybe even our pocket books. There is a lot to be said for riding your bike, a lot that is good.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and contributed to the first annual bike week. We look forward to next years bike week, which will be bigger and better, no doubt about it.

check out our photos from the bicycle breakfast. All photos are courtesy of Caroline Shugart



















Local apples! They tasted so good! mmm...














Just a few folks enjoying bagels and such














Our boss Adam was pretty happy about the bagels.