ChampRides bike sharing program rolled out at Champlain College

ChampRides kick off with President Donald J. Laackman and Transportation Director Nic Anderson


BURLINGTON, Vt. (June 10, 2015) -- Champlain College President Donald J. Laackman and a core of dedicated bicyclists celebrated the start of a new campus bike sharing program with a short ceremony and celebratory ride around the hillside neighborhood on Wednesday morning.
Champlain College now has seven bicycles available for any student or employee to use for free - for up to four hours at a time. Three bikes are available to be checked out at The Hub Desk on the second floor of the IDX Student Life Center on campus, and four bikes are available for use at the Lakeside campus off Pine Street. The bikes are a mixture of mountain bikes, cruiser bikes and city bikes in a variety of sizes to fit most.
The College also recently opened a new bicycle mechanic workshop in its residential Juniper Hall for students and employees to use to maintain and repair bikes. The space was funded by the Champlain College Green Revolving Fund.

Nic Anderson, director of transportation said, "We wanted to use this program as a way of providing cheap and sustainable transportation to our campus community. Employees can use them to hop up to a meeting really quick and grab some exercise, and students can use them to grab a quick coffee downtown. The possibilities are really endless."

The program is similar to one at the University of Vermont and the City Green bike share program for Burlington City employees. "Eventually we hope to connect up with a citywide program that provides bikes for anyone in Burlington to use," Anderson said.

Anderson also urged interested bicyclists to join him and others from Champlain on Thursdays at 12:30 for a weekly summer bike ride to explore the nooks and crannies of Burlington. It will depart from the IDX parking lot on 262 South Willard St., and will last about an hour, focusing on safer, quiet streets and bike paths. It is open to all interested riders.

Bikers at Champlain College

ChampRides, Champlain College's new free bikeshare program started Wednesday as seven new bikes were added to the program.

ChampRiders

Champlain College President Donald J. Laackman (with the tie) took one of the new bikes out for a test ride after a brief ceremony to kickoff the new bikeshare program on campus. ChampRides Bike Names


All the current bikes have been named in honor of various Champlain connections: Here's the story so far:

1. Dunham ­ Brothers John and Austin Dunham built twin houses, now Hill and Lyman Halls, side by side in

1884. That year, The Burlington Free Press gushed that the two new dwellings were "the handsomest private

residences in the city." The Dunham brothers made their money as lumber dealers at a time when lumber was big

business in Burlington.

2. Bigelow ­ Sisters Susan and Elizabeth Bigelow built Cushing Hall in 1872 and lived there with their brother

George until 1885. They were members of a prominent abolitionist family in Burlington. After fighting for the Union

during the Civil War, George was a newspaper editor, Burlington postmaster, and state legislator.

3. Grace ­ Grace Anna Goodhue was born on January 3, 1879, in Burlington. Grace met (soon to be) President

Calvin Coolidge and on October 4, 1905, Goodhue and Coolidge married in a simple ceremony at her parents'

house in Burlington, now  Coolidge Hall on Maple Street.

4. Alfred ­ Alfred B. Fisher (1831­- 1911) is one of Burlington's most prominent architects. He designed seven of

Champlain's historic residence halls: Aiken, Bankus, Hill, Jensen, Lyman, North, and Pearl. He built Pearl Hall for

himself and his wife Ursula in 1884. Fisher was known for his use of the Queen Anne style characterized by

gables, turrets, asymmetrical facades, wrap-around porches, and patterned shingling.

5. Nellie ­ Nellie Flynn (1861­1922), a past resident of Roger H. Perry Hall, was a botanist who studied Vermont

native plants and assembled over 27,000 plant specimens. Her specimens and manuscripts are now at the

University of Vermont's Pringle Herbarium:

http://www.uvm.edu/~plantbio/pringle/Profiles%20of%20Important%20Collections.html

6. George the First ­ George Thompson was the founder and first president of Champlain College, then known as

the Burlington Collegiate Institute and Commercial College. From 1878 to 1884, he was also the College's

principal business instructor. He also taught bookkeeping and penmanship in city schools.

7. Pacer ­ Attorney Robert Roberts, twice mayor of Burlington and a state legislator, lived in what is now Bader Hall

from 1890 to 1940. Legend has it that he wore an oval path in the floorboards of the front porch pacing back and

forth while smoking cigars and pondering his legal cases.


Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.