Enroll at Ripon College, and you might get a Trek 820 mountain bike.

David C. Joyce, president of Ripon College, wants to make a deal with new students this fall: Leave the car at home for the first year, and get a free Trek mountain bike. To keep.

The college has purchased 200 Trek bikes to give to a portion of the roughly 300 first-year students that will arrive in the fall. After students sign a honor code, saying that they will not bring a car to campus that year, they get a bike, a helmet, and a bike lock, altogether worth about $400. The program is supported by college donors, trustees, and alumni, and the college got discounts on the equipment from Master Lock and the Trek Bicycle Corporation, which is based 60 miles south of Ripon.

The giveaway is an attempt to address a slew of issues in a single stroke. Enrollment at Ripon College is growing, but Mr. Joyce has vowed not to add any new campus parking lots, which he considers ugly and a waste of green space. (In fact, the college recently acquired rights to a city road that passes through the middle of campus; that road will be removed, which means there will be one less thing to drive on.) Mr. Joyce is also concerned about energy issues and about student health — he would rather see students outside working their quadriceps than motoring across town.

“We’re trying to change the culture,” Mr. Joyce told The Chronicle. “I figure it’s easier to bribe people than to punish them.”

Velo culture is well known to Mr. Joyce (right), who is a bit of a bike stud for a college president. He is a competitive mountain-bike racer on summer weekends (power climbs are his favorite). He and his wife, Lynne, who is also a cycling nut, go on vacations every year with their bikes. Last year they pedaled across Spain’s Sierra Nevada by day and slept in caves by night.

Doubling the number of bikes in the city of Ripon might bring some benefits for him and other bikers in the area: “There’s not a real bike shop downtown,” he says. “We’re working with a Board of Trustees member who owns property to see if we can encourage somebody to come and open up a shop to service all these bikes.”

The big question is, how many students will take the deal? About a third of the incoming students typically arrive without cars anyway, but Mr. Joyce hopes to persuade another third to go without — even after the first year. “The town is adjacent to the college, so this is a really convenient place to ride a bike,” he says. “Maybe if we get people on them the first year, hopefully they won’t bring a car later on.” —Scott Carlson