At least 50 percent of the 20,000 students on the UC Santa Barbara campus commute by bicycle, which makes for a whole lot of bike tires running flat, developing holes, and ultimately being thrown away.
To manage the busted tires at the UCSB bike shop, Environmental Studies majors Sophia Long and Virginia Such launched TREAD, or the Tire Recovery Education and Diversion program.
“Our bike shop goes through an insane amount of tires and tubes because of our unique biking student population here,” said Such.