Bikes on Campus
Luther College and the city of Decorah are a bike-friendly community. Biking promotes exercise without requiring significant lifestyle changes. It allows you to efficiently integrate exercise into your life while pursuing an already necessary destination. Luther encourages you to consider biking for personal wellness as well as contributing to environmental sustainability.
The Benefits of Biking
As a transportation motive, biking helps you achieve faster transportation as opposed to walking and you receive the health benefits associated with cycling. In addition to reducing carbon emissions, biking offers many personal benefits.
Heart Health
It helps improve your cardiovascular fitness and burn calories. Additionally, studies from Purdue University have shown that regular cycling can cut your risk of heart disease.
Mental Health
Researchers from Illinois University found that 5 percent improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness from cycling led to an improvement of up to 15 percent in mental tests.
Stress Levels
In fact, any mild to moderate exercise releases natural feel-good endorphins that help counter stress and make you happy. Even if it is just for 30 minutes, cycling helps you relax and makes you happier.
Immune System
This is because moderate exercise helps to make immune cells more active so that they are ready to fight infection.
Physical Health
As a part of exercise, any form of biking, whether it is for a work out or just casual riding, biking has a good impact on your physical health.
Keeping a Bike on Campus
Luther College Security, in cooperation with the City of Decorah Police Department, offers free bicycle registration to all students, faculty, and staff on campus. This one-time registration will put your bike’s information into a local database accessible by the Decorah Police Department. If your bike is stolen in Decorah, registering your bike will identify you as the owner if it is recovered.
Bikes can be registered for free at the Luther College Welcome Desk.
If your bike is stolen, please notify Luther College Security.
To help promote the use of bicycles as an alternative form of transportation, Luther offers free winter storage for bicycles. Bicycle storage is free for Luther students and staff.
Fall 2022 Drop Off Dates:
- Saturday, November 19: 9 a.m. to noon
- Sunday, November 20: noon to 3 p.m.
Spring 2023 Bike Retrieval Dates:
- Saturday, April 1: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, April 2: 9 a.m. to noon
Bicycles will be placed in secure, dry storage in the Ashmore-Jewell Barn (the red barn next to Baker Village.) The bikes will be locked together and placed in storage by college personnel. These will be the only two days that we will accept bikes for winter storage. If you have a conflict, please find someone else to bring your bike to storage. The barn will not be opened outside of these two times for security reasons.
All bikes must be registered to be put into storage. Registering your bike is free and easy! Stop by the Welcome Desk in the Student Union and they will get you set up. Registering a bike puts its serial number into a national database, making it easier to find stolen bikes.
The week after Winter Bike Storage, all temporary bike racks will be removed from campus. Bikes that remain on permanent racks may still be subject to removal if Facilities determines that it is blocking snow plowing paths.
To maintain the quality of your bike and to prevent excess fines, we encourage students, faculty and staff to store bikes in the barn or to take them home over Thanksgiving Break.
If you have questions, please email Sustainability.
Bike Share Program
The Luther College Bike Share program provides an opportunity for students and employees to have access to on-demand transportation to meet many needs from mid-March through October (weather dependent). Whether you want to ride downtown to go shopping, run errands, grab a bite to eat, explore parts of the Trout Run Trail, or simply get outdoors and be active, use of the bikes is free and helps Luther meet our sustainability goals by reducing vehicle usage.
Bike Safety
Luther College and the Center for Sustainable Communities encourages safe biking habits on campus and in the community!