Mutual aid and bikes: a partial list.

This is a list of organizations doing work we believe in, and what we do with or for them. It’s a partial list because the full list would take longer to write than this post, and because the work changes — organizations grow, shift focus, merge, dissolve, get defunded, restart under new names. We update this when we can. If we’ve missed someone doing good work in Tucson, tell us and we’ll look into it.

Organizations we donate to directly

• Barrio Bicicletas Collective — A community repair collective operating out of the Barrio Viejo neighborhood. They do free repair clinics on weekend mornings and build up donated bikes for people who can’t afford to buy. We send them parts and occasionally a mechanic for their bigger events.
• Desert Roots Mutual Aid — A Tucson-based mutual aid network focused on food and transportation access in the South Side and Midvale Park neighborhoods. We’ve donated bikes for their volunteer delivery program and we refer people to them when they’re looking for more than just a bike.
• Frontera Bike Project — Works at the intersection of migrant community support and cycling access. They run basic repair workshops in multiple languages and have a small lending library of tools for community members without their own. We do an annual parts drive for them every October.
• South Tucson Youth Rides — A youth program that gets kids on bikes in the South Tucson area, with an emphasis on traffic safety and bike maintenance as a life skill. We’ve donated bikes, hosted shop tours, and sent Dan to do a basic-maintenance demo for their summer program.

“Mutual aid isn’t charity. Charity maintains the gap. Mutual aid tries to close it. We try to be clear about which one we’re doing.”
— Dan

Rides we organize for or ride alongside

Several times a year we participate in or help organize rides with a civic or community purpose. Past examples include a ride to the polls during local elections (nonpartisan logistics, partisan enthusiasm), a Day of the Dead memorial ride through the Southside, and a summer safety ride with Desert Roots that doubled as a community introduction to the neighborhood’s new bike infrastructure.

How this connects to the shop

A percentage of every sale at LoBall goes toward this work. It’s not a huge percentage — we’re a small shop and margins on used bikes aren’t fat — but it’s consistent and it’s written into how we operate, not treated as optional based on whether it was a good month. If you’ve ever bought a bike from us or had your bike serviced at our service counter, some of that money went somewhere in this list.

If you want to get more involved — volunteering, donating parts, coming to a community ride — reach out through our contact page or call 520-365-0754. We can usually point you in a useful direction.