Dylan Mazo (LAW’24) stopped by BUCK recently after his bike’s brakes started squeaking.

Campus & Facilities

New BU Cycle Kitchen Provides DIY Bike Repair Space—and Community

Grand opening celebration tomorrow, with games and free food

The folks at the newly opened BU Cycle Kitchen (BUCK) in West Campus have all the equipment to fix your bike, from repair stands to torque wrenches to air pumps. They can teach you how to reattach a slipped chain or repair brake pads…and it’s free.

But the new spot, at 1019 Commonwealth Ave. in West Campus (entrance is on Babcock Street), is meant to do more than that—organizers say their hope is for it to become the new hub of the BU biking community (it’s open to faculty and staff as well as students), “a holistic center for biking,” says Carl Larson, assistant director of BU Transportation Demand Management and Planning. Similar “bike kitchens” (also called bike co-ops) exist all over the world, and the BU team hopes to replicate their success here and make it “a central gathering point for people to ride bikes, learn how to fix, and just enjoy riding bikes,” Larson says.

BUCK offers bike safety classes and workshops, organized community bike rides, movie nights, and free coffee on Thursday mornings. They can help BU bikers access free lights (required in the city) and helmets, too. It’s also the place to register your bike—required if you want to access BU’s secure bike rooms. Registering your bike can help BU Police Department officers track you down if your bike is stolen and recovered.

The space is set up like a typical bike shop, with bike stands and tools hanging on the wall.

On Friday, September 29, at 4 pm, BUCK is hosting an opening celebration, with pizza, pretzels, games, a spray paint station (bring your own T-shirt or bandana), and prizes.

BUCK’s opening has been a long time coming, Larson says. For years, BU didn’t have an established campus bicycle community, even though many people on campus rode bikes. Finally, in 2017, the University started thinking about a campus-wide bike plan, which took into account a range of bike-related issues, from new bike rack locations to addressing barriers to bicycling, such as education and street safety. BUCK is the happy culmination of that work, he says.

The shop is managed by Jay “PQ” Diengott, BU Transportation Services bicycle program manager. Diengott (who uses they/them pronouns) is active in the local biking community. Before starting at BU in mid-August, they taught cycling education programs through MassBike and volunteered as a mechanic for the educational organization CommonWheels. They also ride with a bicycle chopper gang called SCUL.

Diengott says that educating bikers helps mitigate the risks posed by city biking. They also see the bike kitchen as an essential step in getting more people biking, which will help Boston reduce traffic congestion. “We’re thinking about the future, global warming, and how emissions contribute to that,” they say. “Every person we can get out of a car and onto a bicycle is one less driver.”

Even before its official opening, BUCK has proven incredibly popular. “Yesterday morning, I had people in all three stands and a line out the door,” Diengott says. “Another day, we registered 65 unique visitors.”

Diengott says that lots of BUCK’s “customers” might be folks who can’t afford to go to a pricey bike shop or who need a fast fix (sometimes waits at bike shops can be upwards of two weeks, they say). Or it’s folks who want to learn how to do the essential maintenance themselves. “Teaching people how to do these fixes themselves brings me the most joy,” Diengott says. “We want to give you the ability to, as my sister-in-law puts it, ‘not be a damsel in distress.’ If you get a flat tire or something goes wrong, you will have a sense of how to fix it.”

For more problematic issues, the BUCK crew says that traditional bike stores, such as nearby Landry’s, continue to be a valuable resource. Landry’s has also been a helpful partner in launching BUCK.

Diengott had assumed that the most common teaching requests they’d get would be fixing a flat. But it has actually been a lot of “My bike is making a funny noise,” shifting issues, how to lubricate a chain, how to lock a bike, and access BU’s secure bike rooms. When someone comes in to register a bike, Diengott confirms that they have a U-lock or a chain lock and not just a cable lock, which can be easily cut.

Dylan Mazo (LAW’24) stopped by BUCK recently after his bike’s brakes started squeaking. He says he views biking as his “sanctuary and temporary escape” from his busy life as a law student. He had never worked on a bike before and soon realized he would need help fixing the issue. “When I came to the BUCK, PQ, the shop manager, greeted me and promptly guided me through the process of adjusting my brake calipers,” Mazo says. “It was a great experience as PQ was incredibly knowledgeable in all things biking, and I was provided all the tools I could ever need. Not only was my bike’s issue resolved, I also had the pleasure of fixing it myself.”

And now Mazo is back biking on Boston streets, armed with more confidence and knowledge, the whole point of BUCK. “By getting us together, good things can happen,” Larson says. “And more people can realize just how fast, fun, and cheap it is to get around.”