Welcome to our Lowrider Bike Week, presented by Tecate, the official beer of L.A. TACO. Each day this week, our Senior Photographer Erwin Recinos will bring you features and photo essays celebrating the best of L.A.'s thriving lowbike scene. If you have a fly lowbike and would like to show it off to our L.A. TACO followers, send us a photo and your Instagram handle at editor@lataco.com. We'll post it up on our IG stories and give you a shout-out.
[dropcap size=big]O[/dropcap]n a blazing hot Saturday afternoon, the lowrider bike club Rack City Lows meets up in Carson to put in work on their pride and joy on two wheels. While recent media coverage in Los Angeles has focused on lowrider meetups happening in Echo Park and East Los Angeles, the club’s founder and president Donn King remain committed to the art of their counterparts: lowrider bikes, also known as lowbikes.
In November 2019, Donn tore his ACL in a pickup game of basketball with his basketball team. Post-surgery, one of his physical therapy treatments was riding a bicycle. That planted a seed. He eventually bought his own bicycle to save money and developed a passion for riding bikes.
During quarantine, Donn began building bikes for himself and his kids to get out of the house and go on bike rides. When they would ride around, folks started to stop and ask who built the bikes and if they were for sale? Donn’s girlfriend spotted the demand with that type of attention and spoke with him about making a side hustle of building bikes. With time, Donn started to build and sell bikes for a small clientele. As the pandemic grew and hit and the rest of L.A. went into lockdown, Donn made custom lowbike building a full-time hustle to make up for his loss of income as a truck driver.
In August 2020, Donn befriended some of his clients with the same interest and passion for lowrider bikes. Several invitations to group rides and meetups led to the creation of Rack City Low, named after Donn’s basketball team. The rest of the club members met through social media. These are the photos of their last meetup as they all prepare and distribute their honorable club plaques for an upcoming ride on July 2nd.
