The ASUW Bike Shop, located in the HUB across from the UW bookstore, aims to provide safe trannsportation by maintaining and fixing any type of bike.

To reach out to students the bike shop uses posters, advertisements in the Greek Row phone book, Rainy Dawg radio and word of mouth.

Lauren Boubel started working at the bike shop her freshman year, even though she had very little experience, and now two years later she is the shop manager.

“Before I even started college, I e-mailed the old manager ... and she was big on getting women into the biking community,” she said. “I had done one flat fix before I started working here.” Boubel said she has seen attitudes towards women in the bike shop change over the two years that she has been working there.

“It’s like there is this need to prove yourself,” she said of working in a male-dominated field like being a bike mechanic. “People are being more open minded about it now.”

Recently, lower gas prices and inclement weather have discouraged people from riding, but Boubel said that the strong biking trend noticed this summer is continuing.

During the first five weeks of the quarter the shop was completely booked, a situation that could be attributed to a massive increase in the UW population, or the popularity of biking, Boubel said.

The bike shop has a Web site with an online forum, where students are can post questions under “Ask the Experts,” buy and sell bikes and parts in the “Marketplace,” or provide feedback on their bike shop experience.

There are six employees and one volunteer. This is the first time that the bike shop is offering an unpaid position, and Boubel said that she would be willing to have more students volunteer.

Rainydawg Radio is probably the most visible — or audible — of the ASUW enterprises to students, because the station works with Arts and Entertainment to bring artists to campus to play concerts.

The station plays music that students want to hear, said Rainydawg manager Jason Baxter. It is an alternative to other Seattle radio stations.

To get student musical tastes, all of the DJs solicit requests during the broadcasts, and the DJs themselves are all students.

“Given that all of our DJs are students, I feel like it’s a somewhat accurate representation of the student body,” Baxter said.

Anyone can apply to be a DJ, and hiring takes place at the beginning of each quarter. There is also a street team and a group of volunteers who work for the station without being on the airwaves.

Rainydawg stands out from the crowd because it plays more local music than any other Seattle station, including KEXP, Baxter said.

“We have four hours of local programming five days a week,” he said. “A lot of the local bands that we are playing are not obvious choices.”

While in the past Rainydawg had talk show type broadcasts, the programming for the rest of the year will focus on music, to follow the tagline of the station, “Pursue Music.”

Some students may already be familiar with the Experimental College (ExCo), even if they do not know that it is one of the three ASUW enterprises.

ExCo offers a wide variety of extra-curricular courses ranging from computer classes to culinary arts classes.

“The Experimental College gives students an opportunity to have educational experiences that are outside of the general academic course offerings at the UW,” ExCo assistant director Neil Rotta said. “We were actually founded under that principal in 1968.”

While some may be skeptical that a belly dance class, for example, could be as educational as pursuing an engineering degree, Rotta explained that the ExCo classes are more than just an opportunity to have fun.

“It’s actually a bit of a misconception that our classes are just fun and games,” he said. “We actually have a lot of classes that are very academically based, on topics like investing, calligraphy or goal setting.”

Student feedback is overwhelmingly positive, Rotta said, citing an example of one student who returned to sign up for five classes during one quarter.

Like many ASUW entities, visibility is an issue, and ExCo is working on increasing student participation.

Approximately two-thirds of the number of people signed up for classes are from the community at large, meaning that only one-third are students, Rotta said.

“The ratio of students to community members has been consistent for about the past 30 years,” said ExCo director Jono Hanks. During the first decade after the creation of ExCo, student numbers were high. Those students graduated but continued to take classes, thus changing the demographics of the ExCo participants, Hanks said. In addition, many alumni are now instructors.

Low student participation can also be seen as a benefit.

“Most of our classes have a lot of community members in them, so you are learning how to paint with grandmothers, you are learning how to weld steel with business people,” Hanks said. “It’s exposure to a whole lot of different ways of life.”

Reach reporter Sonia McBride at features@dailyuw.com.