Alamosa Bicycle Coalition

The Alamosa Bicycle Coalition began as a grassroots community initiative in 2019 through a series of community conversations and surveys around how bicycle services could help to address transportation needs in the rural area of the San Luis Valley, especially among low-resource community members and other diverse stakeholders not well-represented in Alamosa’s bicycling culture. ABC incorporated as a nonprofit in May 2020 and received its 501(c)(3) status shortly after. It continues to rely on community volunteers, along with a part-time executive director hired in Jan. 2022 to coordinate operations and programs. From these roots, some key partnerships have evolved with a variety of local stakeholder groups, including youth-serving organizations, social services providers, immigrant advocacy groups, the LGBTQAI+ community, community corrections, and folks serving those experiencing housing insecurity.  Since January 2022, we are also hosting a half-time intern through SLV GO!’s Embajadores initiative. Fernando has greatly increased our staff capacity and has had a strong impact on increasing ABC’s engagement with our Latinx communities.

Bicycling opens important transportation, recreation, and health opportunities lacking to many in our low-wealth rural area, where there are no public transportation systems and many do not have access to other vehicles. Many face economic and knowledge barriers to acquiring and maintaining reliable bicycles to meet specific and often basic needs, whether a ride to work, school, community activities, healthy food shopping, or important social service and health appointments. Our goal is to open up greater cycling opportunities and related benefits – physical, social-emotional, and economic well-being – to those previously excluded from or on the margins of cycling. This encompasses youth and adults who have limited or no access to vehicles and/or drivers’ licenses - including those living in shelters, community correctional facilities, and within our immigrant communities. In addition, we provide doorways for women and non-binary folks, LGBTQ+ and folks for whom English is not the primary language to engage as a full part of the bicycling community. ABC has several different strategies to address these inequalities including our pop-up maintenance events, which allow us to increase our accessibility, removing barriers to receiving a bicycle, and training and incentivizing folks generally on the margins of the bicycling community to join in facilitating events.