The Rose Pedal Bike Library
The Rose Pedal Bike Library
by Damion Alexander
A few weeks ago I was out picking up a bicycle for the Rose Pedal Bike Library through the Rose Pedal Foundation when something interesting happened.
The bike itself had already been offered around a bit. The donor had tried a few bike shops first, but nobody wanted it. Not broken, not unusable, just not something they had space for or interest in dealing with.
That part stuck with me more than anything else. Because it wasn’t about one bike. It was about what happens to all the bikes like that.
While I was there, one of the neighbors came out. She recognized me from my column in the OV Style, and we started talking. Casual at first. Then the conversation shifted, as it usually does when you’re standing in someone’s driveway talking about bicycles.
I mentioned why I was there, picking up the bike for the bike library, and that opened up a much bigger conversation than I expected.
What do we actually do with all the bicycles sitting around Tucson?
Almost every garage I know has at least one. Sometimes two or three. Bikes that were bought with good intentions. Bikes that were ridden once in a while. Bikes that slowly get pushed to the side when life changes.
And they just sit there.
Tucson is full of that.
And not just bicycles.
We live in a place where we have access to a lot of things. We buy more than we use. We upgrade things before the old ones are worn out. We store things “just in case” and then forget about them entirely.
At the same time, there are people right now who don’t have access to those same things.
So the question becomes pretty simple. How do we connect the two? Not in a theoretical way. Not in a policy way. Just practically. Person to person.
That’s really what the Rose Pedal Bike Library is trying to do.
Take something that is sitting unused and put it under someone who will actually use it. Not as decoration. Not as clutter. But as transportation, recreation, freedom, or even just a reason to get outside again.
Because a bicycle changes in value depending on who has it.
For one person it’s storage. For another it’s mobility. For a kid it’s independence. For an adult it might be the first time in years they’ve had a way to move around their neighborhood without asking someone for a ride.
And once you start talking about it, most people already understand it.
Nobody really disagrees. Most people want to help. That part isn’t the issue.
The issue is friction. People don’t know where to take things, or they assume nobody needs them, or they tried once and gave up. In this case, the donor had already gone to a few bike shops and basically hit a wall. So the bike just sat there until the right connection happened.
That’s the pattern I keep seeing. And it goes way beyond bicycles.
Not long ago I ended up helping place a refrigerator for a single grandmother who was raising her grandkids. She had been getting by with coolers and buying ice every day just to keep food from spoiling. It took one phone call to get her a refrigerator someone else wasn’t using.
One call. That was it.
And I don’t think that’s rare. I think it’s everywhere.
There are a lot of things sitting unused in homes, garages, storage units, and backyards. At the same time there is a lot of need that never gets met, not because people don’t care, but because the connection between the two never gets made.
That’s the gap. And it’s a solvable one.
Most people don’t think of themselves as part of a solution like that. They think it’s someone else’s job. A nonprofit. A government program. A system.
But a lot of the time it’s just awareness and willingness. A willingness to say, “I’m not using this anymore. Maybe someone else could.”
That’s it. The rest is just matching.
The Rose Pedal Bike Library sits right in that space. It doesn’t require a huge system change to work. It just needs bikes, and people willing to pass them along, and a way to put them back into circulation.
And in a place like Tucson, where cycling already plays such a big role in transportation, recreation, and community life, it feels like a natural fit.
What I walked away from that day thinking about wasn’t just the bike I came to pick up. It was how many other bikes are probably sitting in the same exact situation.
Waiting.
And how many people could actually use them right now if the connection was made.
That’s really the work underneath all of this. Not collecting bikes. Not organizing programs. Just closing the gap between what we have sitting still and what someone else could be riding.
And sometimes all it takes is a conversation in a driveway to realize how close those two things actually are.
To donate a bicycle, bike parts, or cycling gear to the Rose Pedal Bike Library through the Rose Pedal Foundation, or if you are someone who could use a bike, contact Damion Alexander at damion@damionalexander.com or call/text 520-977-5664. If you email, please include “Bike Library” in the subject line.
The goal is simple. Get bikes out of garages, including my own, and back on the street where they can put smiles on faces, help people explore the region, and get back and forth to work.