Regardless if you have a car or not, having a bicycle while a graduate student at UCI is a good idea. This blog post will go over why Irvine is a great place to have a bike and suggest some places to find bikes and bike services.
UCI is a large and spread-out campus. Walking from one side to the other can take a good amount of time and energy, but with a bike it feels much smaller as you can easily traverse the whole campus in a few minutes. If you happen to live in graduate student housing like I do, it is possible to get to appointments on campus from your apartment complex in about 5-10 minutes. I really appreciate this convenient and easy commute! Furthermore, Irvine happens to have great biking trails for both road bikes as well as off road mountain bikes. There are paved trails that follow the Newport Back Bay, which are fun to ride around on and provide great views of the bay and the harbor if you go far enough. There are also nice paved trails that go up Quail Hill in the neighborhoods behind UCI. These are only two examples of the many bike paths in this area. If you prefer the dirt, there are many miles of trails to explore on your mountain bike. Some good starting points include Boomer Canyon and Coastal Peak Park. Both of these are close enough to UCI that they are accessible by bike alone without needing a car.
If I have convinced you by arguing that having a bike is convenient and provides great recreation and exercise opportunities, then consider some of these places for purchasing a bike. My favorite bike shop is located in Santa Ana, about a 30 minute drive from campus. It is a cooperative bike shop called The Bicycle Tree. They sell refurbished secondhand bikes and allow customers in need of service to use their tools and equipment at a low hourly rate. I also like them because they are active in the community and do work that is useful for kids in Santa Ana. A more convenient option might be the Bike Religion shop that is located on campus. Although their shop is very compact in size, they offer many bikes for sale and repair services. If neither of these works for you, considering searching Google for bike shops in Costa Mesa or Newport because there are several fairly close by. I have used a shop called Two Wheels One Planet in Costa Mesa when I needed part before and was happy with the service and availabilities there. Lastly, if you’re on a budget the most affordable option might be to search the bicycles sections of Orange County Craigslist periodically until you find a used bike that suits your needs.
Links:
http://www.thebicycletree.org/
http://www.bikereligion.com/page/irvine-ca-store
http://twowheelsoneplanet.com/
https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/search/bik