Eco-Friendly Burning Man Bike Option

The best all around option to bring a bike to Burning Man (if you’re not driving to the playa with your personal bike) is to rent a single speed beach cruiser.

Many burners will explore buying a cheap bike from a “big box store” like Walmart or Target etc. for one time use. Here’s a few reasons why that might not be the best option for the planet:

  • Carbon footprint: it’s estimated that manufacturing an average new bike results in the emissions of around 530 pounds of greenhouse gasses.
  • Additional CO2 emissions are generated by transporting the bikes from China in container ships and moving them to their destination in the US via semi trucks.
  • Each new bike brings with it a lot of cardboard and other packing materials. While some of it can be recycled a lot of it becomes trash.
  • The cheaply made department store bikes are often sloppily assembled and end up being abandoned and discarded to the landfill after the burn.
  • Lastly, it’s well known that the giant box stores squash local business, pay their workers poverty wages and hire part-time workers to avoid providing health care benefits.

So renting a quality bike from a small business, a bike that returns to the playa year after year, avoids the environmental pitfalls and is hands down the best sustainable option.

How to transport a bicycle to Burning Man

Getting your bike to Burning Man is easy. Here are some basic ways to transport your bike to the playa.

Bike Rack on the Car: there are inexpensive and easy to install bike racks that simply strap on to the trunk or hatchback of a car. These racks are simple and quick to install with just a few straps. There are 2 bike, 3 bike and 4 bike versions. They are inexpensive to buy and you can also rent them from bike shops in Reno to use with a rental car.

The 2 bike trunk rack is easy to mount on your vehicle.
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Beware of Walmart bikes for the playa

There are many reasons not to shop at Walmart but from a bicycle perspective the cheap bikes that come from department stores are often sloppily (or even dangerously) assembled and don’t do well on the playa.  Make sure that your playa bike is built by a pro bike mechanic at a local bike shop.

A lot of good arguments exist to not to use Walmart for your burn supplies, the main one is that they seriously hurt communities by driving out locally owned small businesses.  Please shop locally and support family owned small business!  Thank you!

Check out the full bike article at:  Bicycling.com

Walmart Bikes

Cheap Walmart bikes are not the most reliable choice for the playa. Get your bike from a real bike shop, they are well built, safe and work the best.

The Great Bikeageddon of 2017 – bearing destruction and how to fix it

The deep, fine, poofy dust that was prevalent on the playa in 2017 wrecked havoc on the crank bearings of most beach cruisers and cheaper mountain bikes. The more expensive bikes with sealed bottom bracket bearings weren’t as affected by this phenomenon.

At the Bike Gods bike repair we replaced crank bearings at an unprecedented rate from previous years.  We even brought in extra bearings from Reno twice until the bike shop there was sold out of bearings.  So if you rode a bike at Burning Man in 2017 with a “one piece crank” you’ll probably need to service or replace the bearings.  This video shows you how.

 

The bearings and grease are available at your bike shop.  Please support your Local Bike Shop.