Within minutes, Hollingsworth had his pedal. Had he been a new customer, Cromley would've sold him a used pedal for $1. Since Hollingsworth bought the bike — built from salvaged parts — from the Bike Cave, it was free.

This sort of scene happens dozens of times daily at the Bike Cave, a bicycle cooperative that's the equivalent of the perfect neighbor who will help anyone repair or replace anything.

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The Cave, operating out of the belly of a services building on the main campus of Texas State University, is a one-stop shop for bicycle parts and repair. It's funded by Texas State's Department of Auxiliary Services, which runs the school's shuttle bus fleet.

Anyone can come in and buy a rebuilt bicycle that's substantially cheaper than new ones for sale at retail stores. Or they can buy salvaged parts to repair or upgrade a bike.

And, more important, the Bike Cave operates as a corollary of British author Anne Ritchie's most famous line: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

“If someone wants us to fix their bike,” Bromley says, “we'll do it, even though we'd rather not do it that way. Instead, we'll ask them if they've got a couple of hours ... and we'll show them how to fix it themselves.”

The Bike Cave does that for free.

That's what Patrick Steves was doing later that morning. Bromley and part-time worker Sean Welch showed Steves a few tuneups for the bike he bought for $100 — the Bike Cave's top price, by the way — a week earlier.

It's not surprising Texas State would support the Bike Cave. Campus parking spaces are rarer than a $10 textbook. Shuttle buses that move students from apartment complexes and satellite parking lots are rolling sardine cans, packed with kids and backpacks. Encouraging bike use takes kids off buses and gives remaining riders more elbow room to text friends.

Down the road in San Antonio, the city is spending taxpayer money and administrative attention on the promotion of bicycling as an alternative way to get around.

Good luck with that. San Antonio's got 412 square miles of land. Pedaling from an affordable apartment off Loop 1604 to any of the city's colleges, even if there were bike lanes, would be a life-threatening, time-swallowing trip. And it'd be a hot one, too.

Meanwhile, in the tiny college town of San Marcos, the ride from the farthest apartment complexes to the campus is two or three miles. Unlike Sun Belt metro areas, the town's retail business — other than the gigantic outlet malls — sprang up in proximity to the campus. That means most of a Texas State student's needs — books, bars, food and housing — are on that three-mile stretch of Aquarena Springs Drive or adjacent streets.

San Antonio's bike master plan calls for initiatives to build miles of cycling paths and for educational programs to “institutionalize” bicycle usage. It will take years to fund and build out.

Back up the road, it was easy to get things rolling. Back in 2005, student Matt Akins was fixing bicycles from his dorm room, using spare parts he had collected. Word spread. As demand grew, it got the school's attention, which offered space and money for the Bike Cave in 2007.

The Cave also gets funds from local benefactors and accepts donations of cash or bicycles. Every year, Bromley says, when campus police impound bicycles abandoned after graduation or transfer, the Bike Cave gets dibs on the best ones, which are sold to fund the operation. Others are stripped for parts.

“We want to get people on bikes,” says Welch. “Anybody who wants to come here can. If they do, we will help them.”