Ripon College, a small liberal arts school of 1,000 students located about an hour and a half from downtown Milwaukee, is providing a great incentive to incoming freshmen: if they sign a pledge not to bring a car on campus for the entire semester, they’ll get a brand spanking new mountain bike!

This new program is called Velorution, which is a combination of vélo (which means bicycle in French) and revolution, and it’s definitely going to get students to start living an eco-lifestyle.

Starting with Training Wheels

The Velorution program was created as a solution to Ripon’s less than thrilling parking problem. The historic campus only had 400 parking spaces available, and once those were all given out, an alternative to cutting down more trees and paving more spaces needed to be figured out.

The college President, David C. Joyce, who was already an avid cyclist, decided to purchase bicycles for the incoming freshmen as a way to get them to leave their car at home and reduce their carbon footprint. Money was graciously donated by friends and alumni.

So what was purchased: 200 brand new Trek mountain bikes, Trek Vapor helmets and MasterLock U-Locks. That’s a pretty good incentive for a freshman if you ask me!

The program is still in its opening stages, so it’s hard to say how it will pan out with the new freshman. But one thing that is for certain: any freshmen who didn’t have a car in the first place will have a pleasant surprise when they show up on campus!