[Reprinted from the Wisconsin State Journal. -Ed.]
By George Hesselberg
Wisconsin State Journal
In, a quiet back room, 80-year-old Clem Baime struggled patiently Wednesday afternoon to find his bearings.
No problem. They are in a tray attached to a metal stand that holds a 20-inch, old Schwinn girl's bicycle.
"I love working on Schwinns," said Baime, An angular man who seems too young to call spry. It's strong metal," he said, approvingly, bearings tinkling.
Metal alone won't save this bike, nor any of the dozens of other bicycles parked or hanging neatly from the walls at Wheels for Winners.
These bikes need people like Baime, and his Wednesday coworkers Phil Culp and Charlotte Marshall and other volunteers to take them apart and fix them and put them back together again, in many cases better than new.
Wheels for Winners is a private, nonprofit organization that reconditions donated bicycles, then presents them to youths who pay for them with community service. The goal is as simple as can be. "That all kids who want bicycles, can have them."
The new bicycle owners are given helmets and locks and licenses, too, and get instructions on safe bicycling, said Mary Phalen, who coordinates the program with neighborhood associations and agencies. More than 140 bicycles were given away this year, including 10 delivered to Vera Court on Wednesday.
Culp, 61, a retired Justice Department arson expert, and Baime, a retired Department of Public Instruction supervisor of schools, repair bicycles on Mondays and Wednesdays.
"We do all the bearings, front, back, crankshaft and headset, take care of everything, even painting if necessary," said Culp, who rode his first-- and took apart his first-- bicycle on the East Side's Oakridge Avenue.
Baime didn't have a bicycle as a boy in Mandan, N.D., but he had a little bicycle shop at his home here, and he is a rider of long-sitting. ("I've always appreciated the three-speeds, easy to work on.")
The donated shop space is kept tidy, and there are orderly piles of pedals, forks, cables, inner tubes and handlebars all saved from other bicycles. There are dozens of adult bikes here, too-- a J.C. Penney bike with a disc brake, for example, and an old Robin Hood bicycle from Nottingham, England-- but the children's bicycles are the top priority.
Though there is plenty of work to keep the mechanics from the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) greasy, there is a shortage of children's bicycles, especially boys' 20- and 24-inch bicycles. (The measurement is on the tire.) If you are carefully restoring a bicycle from scratch, even in December, spring is just around the corner.
So, on Saturday, Wheels For Winners will accept fixable children's bicycles, 24-inch or smaller, at its shop behind the Karate Shop at the Nakoma Shopping Center, west of Midvale Boulevard, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The entrance is from the alleyway.
If your child, or a child of your acquaintance, has outgrown a bicycle, a donation is tax-deductible. The telephone number at the shop is 273-4787.
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