Every year, students living in the far reaches of the Quad or Mather eagerly anticipate the Phillips Brooks House Association Bike Auction as an easy way to save themselves from three years of shuttle dependence. Many of these students, however, were disappointed by the utter lack of merchandise at this year’s auction. Held on Oct. 3, the auction offered a meager 10 bikes for sale, compared to the nearly 50 of previous years. The reason might have something to do with the fact that the long-standing presence of Quad Bikes, the non-profit bicycle shop for the Harvard community, was nowhere to be seen. Had their charitable streak run dry?
As it turns out, there was a slight misunderstanding between PBHA and Quad Bikes over what to do with the abandoned bikes around Harvard. According to David P. Tucker, an employee of Quad Bikes, the Quad Bikes office received a call from PBHA a few days before the auction asking if they would donate any of the bikes that Quad Bikes had collected around campus back in May. “PBHA anticipated collecting whatever bikes we cut in the spring, but there was no such communication until right before the auction,” says Tucker.
PBHA Executive Vice President Lydia N. Lo ’09-’10 agreed, saying “There was a slight misunderstanding as to where the bikes would go this year.” She also said that while the bike sale is a yearly PBHA event, it raises less money than many of PBHA’s other fundraisers. “It’s about keeping up a tradition,” says Lo. “It doesn’t matter that much to PBHA in the grand scheme of things.”
Both Lo and PBHA President Richard S. Kelley ’10 says that because PBHA must depend on donations for merchandise, the number of bikes available changes every year. And this year, it may just have been an issue of quality over quantity—“We were really happy to have pretty high quality bikes this year,” says Kelley. To those bike-less Quadlings out there, better luck next year. It looks like you’re stuck with the shuttle or the long, cold trek through Cambridge Commons for the time being.
