<p>My host at prefrosh weekend said a lot of people will take apart their bikes and ship them to Caltech, but I thought I also noticed one or two bike shops as I walked through Lake/downtown areas. Are they decently priced?</p>
<p>Closest to campus is incycle, which is really expensive. Further north is a shop that sells Trek bikes and gives a 10% Caltech discount. I think they're more reasonably priced. Lots of ppl end up buying from Target, which works but the bikes are kinda crappy (I have such a bike).</p>
<p>Pasadena Cyclery sells Trek and others (on Wilson)They take 10% off price for Caltech students with ID card.
The bike shop on Lake has some higher end bikes, like cannondale, Expedition, rocky mountain, etc. Several miles away is a shop that sells Scwinn. The other 2 shops are walking distance, and both give 1 y free maintrenance.</p>
<p>Prices vary by what kind of bike you want. My suggestion is to look online for Pasadena bike shops. In store, thrre are always sales. I've found service very good at first 2 stores mentioned.</p>
<p>Get a longboard instead! Much better for getting around campus as you don't need to lock them up. They're a bit pricier though, maybe 120-160 for an average one, but really it's much awesome crusing around on a longboard.</p>
<p>lol, thats only if you know how to ride one</p>
<p>In my experience bikes tend to break down or get flat tires (or occasionally get stolen) fairly often, so if you don't like maintaining bikes it might be better value for your money to get a cheap mountain bike at Target for something like $60. It'll usually last a half a year to a year, but it's less of a pain if it breaks or gets stolen.</p>
<p>(Also, I don't think that there are many actual bike thefts on campus. Most of the time when bikes get stolen it's because Security stole it. My bike got stolen 4 or 5 times this year and each time it was Security. They have this policy where they steal people's unlocked bikes and if you don't claim it within a certain number of days they give it away to other people.)</p>
<p>Well-maintained bikes don't seem to have too many problems, but a lot of people don't maintain their bikes well. Security's bike giveaway thing is once a year, I think, and announced ahead of time.</p>
<p>why does security steal unlocked bikes?</p>
<p>their segways broke and they need something to ride around campus on.</p>