Bike Exchange is a program design that led to a proof-of-concept event held in Santa Cruz, CA on November 16, 2024

The Bike Exchange is a local system for redistributing unused bikes through community care—not commerce. It was created to solve a simple problem: in Santa Cruz, many bikes sit unused while others in the community can’t afford one.

The Bike Exchange was designed to bridge that gap—by collecting, repairing, and rehoming bikes through a trusted, efficient, and volunteer-powered process.

Event Design

Event Snapshot:

  • Number of Core Partners: 4
    (Community Bike Collective, Housing Authority of the County of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Waldorf School, BCycle Santa Cruz)

  • Point(s) of Exchange: 5

  • Goods and Services Exchanged:

    • Donated bikes

    • Mechanic services

    • Refurbished bikes

    • E-bike ride passes

Core Partners

  1. Donor Group — Santa Cruz Waldorf School & Community Bike Collective

  2. Mechanic Group — Community Bike Collective

  3. Recipient Group & Site Host — Housing Authority of the County of Santa Cruz 

  4. Incentive Provider — BCycle Santa Cruz

Supporting Partners

  1. Pleasure Pizza East Side Eatery

  2. Discretion Brewery

  3. Community Printers

Incentive Reward

The Bike Exchange secured incentive rewards that were both relevant and valuable to the local bike community. During research, Taylor discovered that BCycle Santa Cruz frequently used ride pass giveaways as part of their user onboarding strategy.

Framing the partnership as both product promotion and community engagement, Taylor proposed a win-win: the Bike Exchange would introduce new users to BCycle’s platform, and in return, BCycle would provide 2-hour e-bike ride passes (retail value: $15) as incentive rewards for Bike Exchange participants. These digital passes were redeemable through BCycle’s mobile app.

Results

70 bikes were donated and refurbished, and 16 were distributed on site.

A total of 25 volunteer Mechanics participated—many repairing three or more bikes during the event.

To recognize contributions across the exchange, 73 BCycle ride passes were distributed to:

  • Donors

  • Mechanics

  • Supporting Partners, including Pleasure Pizza East Side Eatery, Discretion Brewery, and Community Printers, who generously donated or discounted their services to enhance the collective benefit for all involved.

After the event, Taylor and the Community Bike Collective collaborated to distribute the remaining 54 refurbished bikes through two additional community giveaways:

  • Friday, December 6, 2024 — Gault Elementary School student families

  • Tuesday, December 10, 2024 — Gardenia Amor y Bienestar families

Read the complete report

The Câmbio Spirit will take many forms