Repairs for refugees at Aggie Blue Bikes

At the USU Logan Campus, students may be surprised to hear a small portion of their USU tuition that goes to Aggie Blue Bikes may find its way off campus.

Since 2022, ABB has been working with Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection, or CRIC, to repair bikes and donate them to refugees lacking transportation.

In 2024, ABB donated roughly 140 bikes to CRIC.

“We’ve kind of always had some bikes that we’ve donated to the community every now and then. It wasn’t like a super regular thing, I connected with CRIC back in 2021— really solidified that as a place that we could donate bikes to,” said Avery Cronyn, Aggie Blue Bikes and sustainable transportation program coordinator.

The bikes, after being repaired and donated, are often adorned with a large ABB sticker with the intention of seeing their impact on the community.

Cronyn, as well as Sydney Knight, CRIC’s client services manager, both discussed the impact they have seen on those who have received bikes through CRIC.

“This partnership has made a huge difference in the lives of our clients. Having a bike can make it so much easier for someone to be able to get around the community, especially since many of the refugees and immigrants we work with don’t have the ability to purchase a vehicle for quite a while after they arrive to the US. This partnership has allowed many of our clients to be able to reach a greater level of self-sufficiency by giving them a means of transportation around the valley,” Knight wrote in an email to The Utah Statesman.

The donated bikes are mostly adult bikes but a few children’s bikes also tend to make their way to the shop. Cronyn explained further the impact he has seen on families who have been affected by donations.

“A lot of people with visa status means that they’re not allowed to get a driver’s license, or it makes it really difficult to get a driver’s license, and then a lot of people can’t afford to buy a car, or can only have one car — there’s a parent is working somewhere 60 hours a week and that vehicle is kind of occupied, and so if anybody else wants to get places and not rely on the bus or walking, the bike is the next best,” Cronyn said.

ABB closes its doors on Fridays to only work on bikes to give to CRIC with volunteers alongside the eight mechanics who regularly work at the shop. Volunteers are not required to be USU students, and many volunteers are high school students in the summer.

With this deal being only about five years old, Knight expressed a desire for growth over time with CRIC.

“We hope to be able to continue our partnership with Aggie Blue Bikes and together continue to connect people to greater access to transportation for a long time to come,” Knight wrote.

Cronyn discussed a future of ABB, both on campus and off, with CRIC.

“My dream would be having more space for blue bikes, and then that would allow us to expand our fleet, and then we could kind of also be getting more bikes to CRIC,” Cronyn said.