New Bike Owners Take a Ride With Pride

SANTA ANA — David Vargas, an engaging 12-year-old, will have plenty of hills to climb and sidewalks to cruise with his new bicycle this summer.

Under an innovative program started this year, the Santa Ana boy and more than 100 other youths not only got bikes Sunday but learned a big lesson about motivation.

The Elks Lodge of Santa Ana obtained and then refurbished unclaimed bikes from the Santa Ana police and Orange County Sheriff’s departments. To get the bikes, members of the Santa Ana Boys & Girls Club were each required to raise at least $45 from sponsors and to ride in the Pedal Santa Ana Bike Race on Sunday.

“Some of them were so excited after getting on their bikes that they were literally shaking at the start of the event,” said John F. Brewster, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Ana.

Vargas had asked all his aunts, uncles and “every family member I could find” to help raise the $45.

“It wasn’t that easy. I was asking everyone for like $1, or even 50 cents. But I did it,” he said as he proudly sat astride a hot-looking GT bike he had picked out.

In all, 106 bicycles were handed out Sunday, Brewster said.

For many youths like Vargas, the lesson learned was more important than biking the 10-mile race, according to Luis Garcia, 18, a games manager at the club.

“Many of these kids come from poor families and getting any kind of a bike is a privilege for them,” Garcia said. “Look at their smiles. They had to go around their neighborhoods and get the money, so they worked for it, they earned it.”

It was a learning experience for organizers too.

Brewster said organizers forgot that youths from low-income families don’t have the advantages others do, including knowing how to ride.

“About 20 of them had a very rough time at the beginning,” Brewster said. “It’s our first event, and it was something we didn’t anticipate and we should have.”

But, with some instruction and an adult to accompany them, the youths were able to ride.

Adriana Rodriguez, 10, had selected a 15-speed bicycle with a gearing mechanism that baffled her. Her mother, Beatrice, 38, said the girl’s first bicycle had been stolen, so the new bike was a welcome replacement.

“After they stole her other bike, it’s been a few years since she’s gotten on another bike and she was very timid,” the mother said. “She kept asking me to help her.”

So, her mother, who had jogging shoes and shorts, ran alongside Adriana, who eventually found a comfortable gear and just kept pedaling.

“I was running with her all the time,” said her mother, only slightly winded. “She wanted the bike but she told me she wasn’t that confident riding it so we only went about three miles because it started to get hot.”

Adriana and her mother later cooled off with refreshments at the end of the race. They also registered the bicycle with the city, which places its serial number and description into the city’s computer, which could help recover it if it’s ever stolen. The city waived its permit fee as part of the event.

Elks volunteers worked a total of 600 hours, meeting twice a week for six months to repair the bicycles, said Jim Tobin, Elks president.

“One effect of the program is to give these kids an incentive, a goal,” Tobin said. “They had to go out and find their own sponsors.”

Yolanda Dennis, 38, whose son, Andrew, 8, got a five-speed bicycle Sunday, said she and her husband helped their son raise $125 toward the bike. She said she knew that for many of the other children and their families, raising the money was difficult.

“A lot of these parents can’t afford to get their children a bike,” Dennis said, “and for the kids, it’s the biggest thing in their life.”