These College Kids Are Biking for 6 Straight Days to Keep Cyclists and Pedestrians Safe
A fraternity at the University of Colorado and the Magnus White charity are raising $100,000 to protect cyclists and pedestrians from distracted drivers
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It’s lunchtime at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and throngs of undergraduates file into the University Memorial student center at the heart of campus. Just beyond the entrance, a student pedals a white stationary bicycle as curious onlookers stop to watch. Suddenly, the opening notes of Bon Jovi’s 1986 hit Livin’ on a Prayer blare from a nearby loudspeaker, and the crowd belts out the chorus: “Ohh, we’re halfway there!”
They are indeed halfway. The cyclist, Thomas Coloian, and many of the onlookers are members of the university’s Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, and they have just hit the midway point of a highly unorthodox charity stunt. The brothers are riding a stationary bicycle for 8,423 consecutive minutes—that’s just shy of six straight days—to raise $100,000 for a local non-profit called The White Line. The organization is named after Magnus White, a local cyclist who was struck and killed by a motorist in 2023. The number of minutes symbolizes every cyclist or pedestrian killed by a driver in the United States in 2022.
