Astute lords and ladies may have noticed that there has been some construction happening in the North Campus Apartment area in the last few weeks. These are not Gundian adaptions of Japanese pagodas, or even small picnic pavilions, but bike shelters to protect your bike from natural elements (They will not protect your bike from drunk joy riders, but should do the job on rainy days).

Here is a picture of the one near my apartment, as of this morning:

I don’t even have a bike to protect, so the existence of the bike shed (can I continue to call it a pagoda? I think that sounds better) doesn’t really affect me, but I’m for it nonetheless. My housemate with a bike is definitely pumped about being able to have her bike on campus over the winter without worrying about damage from Ohio snow/slush, and I can only assume other North dwelling bikers are, too.

The one downside is that in order to have a bike pagoda, a bike pagoda must first be constructed. That begins around 7:30-8 am each morning approximately 20 ft from my bedroom window and sometimes sounds, to quote my eloquent housemate Lauren, “like all the deer in Knox County being shot.” As much as I love to complain, it actually hadn’t occurred to me to be annoyed about the construction until I was specifically asked to comment on it for this post. I wake up around 8 am everyday anyway (aren’t you proud, mom!) and it seems like an outrageous thing to complain about considering they are being made for our benefit. If you’re complaining about the construction noises, I am definitely judging you.

Anyway, if you’re still reading this: my professional opinion is that the pagodas will be finished soon, probably by the end of the semester. If I have one legacy at this school, I would like everyone to refer to them as ‘bike pagodas’ or simply ‘pagodas’