VERO BEACH — Local bike club member Jake Piper just happened to be at The Source, a ministry that helps the poor and homeless in Indian River County, when he heard that a woman starting a new job had her bicycle damaged in a crash. The bike was the woman’s primary transportation, which she needed to get to work.
Piper, a member of the Vero Cycling club, had some recently rehabbed bicycles in his truck, so he dropped off a lady’s bike at The Source, where staff members passed it on to the woman so she could pedal to work, Piper recalled recently.
That’s just one of the dozens of anecdotes about poor and homeless people getting an important leg up in the form of free rehabilitated bicycles from a partnership between Vero Cycling, Orchid Island Bikes & Kayaks, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, The Source and groups such as United Against Poverty.
“The bicycle can make or break getting or keeping a job, or getting medical care,” said Chris Desizlets, a case manager at The Source.
“I feel good about it,” said Red Ledford, a bike mechanic at Orchid Island Bikes & Kayaks. “I enjoy hanging out with the cycling club and helping them fix the bikes.”
Vero Cycling club members spend the first Wednesday of every month at the bike store fixing discarded bikes so the two-wheelers can hit the road again.
The bike shop’s owner, Malcolm Allen, launched the bike rehab program five years ago with Sheriff’s Deputy Teddy Floyd. In 2011, the deputy asked Allen how much it would cost to fix a bunch of discarded bikes. Allen said he would do it for free, and the old bikes began getting recycled.
For the next four years, Orchard Island Bikes & Kayaks would get broken bikes from Floyd that shop mechanic Ledford would get rolling again between November and Christmas. Allen figures his shop rehabbed about 50 to 60 bikes a year.
“They were doing a great job getting recycled bikes back into the community with virtually no help or support from anyone,” said Hugh Aaron, chairman of Bike Walk Indian River County, a nonprofit group advocating for safer conditions for cyclists and pedestrians.
Then, about a year ago, the Vero Cycling club got involved. Some 15 members of the bike group volunteered throughout the past year to fix wheels, patch flats and adjust gear-shifting, said bike club member Mike Vincent, the club’s point man for the bike rehab program.
“It’s a very rewarding thing. We’re hanging out together, working on the bikes. It’s like a drug. The more you do it, the more you want to do it,” said Jack Courtemanche, a Vero Cycling club member. “We’re giving people their lives back.”
In some cases, the volunteers will cannibalize old bikes for parts and use those parts to get other discarded bikes back on the street. In other cases, store owner Allen will donate parts to help fix the broken bikes.
With the added manpower, about 20 to 30 discarded bikes are now repaired monthly, with various groups helping get the two-wheelers into the hands of the homeless and the impoverished who use bikes as their sole form of getting around Vero Beach and Indian River County.
Robin Diaz, The Source executive director, said the bicycle for a homeless person means the same as you having a car. “It’s their independence, their freedom.”
The County Commission gave permission for bike club members to salvage old bikes from the county’s Oslo Road dump center. And the Sheriff’s Office even kicks in leftover bikes from its evidence room. United Against Poverty stores the fleet of fixed and discarded bikes at its facility.
Bike Walk Indian River County worked with Vero Cycling at an event in May to provide bike lights, helmets, reflective vests and safety instruction to The Source’s clientele.
