Nick Shewell, a senior International Business Major and Mandarin Chinese minor from Oley, Pa, is actively involved in the biking culture of campus. Nick first became involved with The Handlebar when he was a sophomore. Originally, he was only there to fill up his tires, but he became interested in the greater mission of The Handlebar when he saw people working on various projects. Nick offered to help the other volunteers because they seemed pretty busy and he had previous bike repair training. Nick says that he had a great time that day and that he continued coming back every day after that to learn more about bike repair.
Nick thoroughly enjoys all aspects of his job at the Handlebar. He loves working on bikes and meeting new people that walk in the door each day. Some of the best parts of his experience have been teaching the freshman the ins and outs of bike repair. Nick believes that it has been incredibly rewarding to watch them grow both as mechanics and students. Even though Nick spends much of his time teaching new volunteers, he is still eager to learn new repair skills. Glen Peterman, a staff member of Dickinson who volunteers much of his time to The Handlebar, has taught Nick so much and served as mentor figure to him over the past three years.
Nick is also involved on campus as the VP to the College Republicans, President of the Cycling Club, and as a student worker at the RSA (the computer nerds that fix everyone computers).
In the future, Nick would like to see Dickinson become a more bike friendly campus. One of the challenges of starting the Dickinson Cycling club has been the schools unwillingness to provide indoor bike storage. Most students who have expressed interest in the club, do not currently have a place to store their racing bikes. Some of these bikes can cost upwards of $5,000 and therefore no one wants to leave that kind of bike chained to an outdoor bike rack. Nick believes that indoor bike storage could benefit all the students on campus because it would greatly reduce the amount of wear and tear caused by keeping a bike outside in the rather rainy Carlisle environment. In addition to bike storage, Nick thinks that there are opportunities to improve sustainability efforts in the dining hall. One way to do this, Nick envisions, is the opportunity to serve yourself in the caf. He believes that this would eliminate much food waste in the cafeteria.
