Students walking around campus may wonder about the colored slips of paper on abandoned bicycles.
They’re auction slips from UPD that give the owner five days’ notice before the bike is broken from its lock and auctioned.
Jean-Tui Popenoe, a mechanic for Student Government Bike Repair, said the bike collection is an opportunity for UPD to raise money and help keep the campus clean.
“These are the bikes people don’t ride,” he said. “Those who actually care about their bike wouldn’t leave it in an abandoned state.”
According to UPD spokesman Jeff Holcomb, officers put tags on abandoned bicycles about four times a year. The notices give owners five days to either relocate their bikes or remove the tags. If the tag is removed, police cannot confiscate the bike by law, Holcomb said, which keeps the bikes on campus.
UPD removes about 750 to 1,000 bicycles each year, despite efforts to contact students who have registered bicycles, Holcomb said. At the end of the spring semester, UPD removed 393 abandoned bicycles from the campus.
If five days pass and the tags remain, UPD takes the bikes to the UF surplus unit to be auctioned off in groups of seven. According to Holcomb, students have 30 days to reclaim their bicycles from the Surplus Warehouse before an Internet auction. About 8 to 10 percent of the bikes are reclaimed.
Unclaimed bikes must go to the warehouse because under state law it is illegal to donate the bicycles to charity. Although some of the bikes that arrive in the warehouse are rusted and in need of repair, the bikes sell at a group rate for prices ranging from $40 to $140, according to David Dykes, property manager for Asset Management Services.
“We keep auctioning the bikes until a profit is made,” Dykes said.
Profits pay for the removal of the bikes and for the the Internet auction. The remainder sponsors a UF scholarship fund, Dykes said.
Local bike shop owner Ted Kubisek said his shop, Spin Cycle, doesn’t buy any of the bikes from the auction but does repairs for customers who purchased their bikes from the auction.
“Most of the bikes are department store bikes that are deteriorated. A nice bike is not deserted,” Kubisek said.
Most of the people who buy deserted bikes use them for recreational purposes, he said.
