When I arrived last spring, one of the first things I noticed about this school is that it seems like almost everyone has a bicycle. Residents have bikes in addition to cars so they can zoom around campus or ride downtown without having to worry about where to park or exceeding the speed limit. Students living off campus often ride their bikes to classes as well. And, once spring settles in, I can guarantee that the number of bikes we see on campus will increase, as students prefer the warm air to a stuffy car ride.
Because UNC Asheville is tucked away in the mountains of Western North Carolina, we have the opportunity that many other schools do not: mountain biking. Many students here enjoy taking their bikes "off-roading" and enjoying the thrill of essentially riding their bikes down mountains and taking their adventure off the beaten path. As I have already mentioned, students also love to ride their bikes downtown. Downtown Asheville is very close to campus, so taking one's bike downtown makes for a fun trip, and beats taking the bus any day. It is equally enjoyable to explore the neighborhoods of Montford and North Asheville via bicycle, especially when the weather is nice.
Given UNC Asheville's obvious love affair with bicycles, it is worth mentioning that we have an awesome bike shop on campus. This shop provides free repairs and maintenance to students' bikes (given that they are not in too terrible a condition) and even offers very reasonable rental prices for students who could not bring a bike to campus. The bike shop is located at the bottom level of Highsmith Union, our student union building, accessible only from the outside (see picture below).
I took some pictures of several popular docking spots for bikes to show you what it looks like on the weekends alone. Given that today is Sunday and most non-residents are not on campus, there are not as many bikes as usual. However, given the amount of bikes in the pictures, you can imagine how great that volume is when off campus students come for classes on weekdays!
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