DesignBuildBLUFF partnered with 88bikes and Park City community members to build a mobile bike shop last week.
According to DesignBuildBLUFF Executive Director Ginger Tolman, the organization designed the bike shop out of a 1970s era enclosed trailer and old car hoods.
Tolman said DBB and 88bikes were originally planning on building a stationary bike shop in Montezuma Creek, but after talking with tribe members, she said the mobile shop made more sense.
“We had been gathering some car hoods because they were easily found and cheap. It seemed like the car hoods would fit into the whole get-out-of-your-car-and-on-a-bike idea,” she said.
Tolman said the project has helped other organizations see that there is a Third-World county in our backyard.
“We thought it would be a great partnership using some of the ideas and philosophies we like to use for buildings,” Tolman said.
Dan Austin, a co-founder of 88bikes, said the official unveiling of the shop will be in September, when the nonprofit will donate 50 bikes to Whitehorse High School located in Montezuma Creek.
“It’s going to take some tweaking to get it completely ready to go, but we’re mostly done. It’s a pretty cool group effort,” Austin said.
According to Austin, the shop will offer bicycle maintenance and safety workshops for students and will travel to remote spots to do repairs. He said the shop will carry most tools found in a regular bike shop as well as a storage facility.
Austin said 88bikes has worked in more than 11 developing countries such as Peru, Uganda and South Africa, but this was great opportunity to work domestically.
“We’ve been wanting to do this because there is real poverty in the U.S. Especially among the Navajo,” Austin said.
88bikes works with international organizations and often sends volunteers into the field.
“We partner with non-governmental organizations that work with orphanages in many of these countries,” Austin said.
DesignBuildBluff started building sustainable homes for families on the Navajo reservation in 2004. But the organization was established 11 years ago when Hank Louis DBB founder, was traveling through Bluff and saw the potential to build homes for families in need.
Tolman said architecture students from the University of Utah and Colorado are given the opportunity to become immersed into the culture and spend a semester designing one to two sustainable homes.
She said the students are given a small budget, so a lot of the materials used in the designing process are recycled.
Tolman said between 18 to 20 architect students will begin their semester with DBB on Aug. 15. The students will be designing and building two homes to be completed by the end of the year.