The yard signs we got rid of, and what we put up instead.

A few years back the shop had a cluster of yard signs in the window. You know the kind — the small corrugated plastic ones that list a series of values, formatted like a creed, all starting with “We believe.” They were well-intentioned. They were also, if we’re being honest with ourselves, performance. They cost us nothing and they said nothing specific about what we actually do. Anybody can put a sign in a window. We took them down.

The problem with performance

We’re not opposed to signage. The sign on our door still says what it says about who’s welcome and who isn’t. That sign is specific — it names something. The yard signs were different. “We believe in kindness” is not a commitment. It’s a vibe. A shop that discriminates against customers could hang that sign and it would be true by some reading. “We believe in science” doesn’t tell you anything about what we actually do differently because we believe in science. The signs had migrated from meaning into decoration, and decoration that signals virtue is worse than no sign at all because it lets you off the hook.

“The question isn’t what do you believe. The question is what do you do, specifically, on a Tuesday afternoon, when it’s hard or inconvenient. That’s not something a yard sign can say.”
— Dan

What’s in the window now

The front window of LoBall has:

• The “Nazis Not Welcome” door sign, still there, still specific
• A hand-lettered board listing the community organizations we currently donate to (updated quarterly)
• A paper flyer for whatever community ride or event is coming up
• A price list for our most common services, because transparency about cost is an act of respect for people who need to budget
• Occasionally: a kid’s drawing, if a kid brought one in and it was good enough to go up

Less performance, more practice

The shift we’ve tried to make — and it’s ongoing, not finished — is from announcing values to practicing them. That means the free safety checks we do for anyone who walks in, regardless of purchase. It means the mechanic who takes 20 extra minutes with a customer who doesn’t speak much English to make sure they understand what we did to their bike and why. It means the price list in the window, because hidden pricing is a power move and we don’t want that power over our customers. It means the organizations on the board actually getting a check, not just a mention.

None of this makes us the perfect shop. We make mistakes. We have blind spots. We’re working on it. But the working on it is the thing — not the announcement of it. If you want to talk about any of it, you know where we are. Contact us here, or come by, or call 520-365-0754. The door’s open.