What's better than a bike for Christmas

To Joe Anecito, not much. Now he is helping make sure children in Reedsport can have the same experience he did as a kid.

   “Every kid loves getting a bike for Christmas,” Anecito said while working out a kink in a bike chain on a recent Saturday. “I used to be tickled pink when I got a bike.”

   The bikes that Anecito restores for both the Reedsport Moose and         Eagles lodges are rough when he starts working on them, but with a little TLC and elbow grease, more often than not, a gem emerges. Once restored, the bikes are given to children in need.

   Anecito repairs bikes all year, but Christmas is his busiest time.

Both Anecito and his wife, Cheryl Whelan, donned Santa hats while he worked on the bikes. Whelan is the test rider. She takes the bike for a spin after Anecito is done fixing it and tells him what still needs work.

Anecito’s grease-accented hands seem perfectly at home repairing bikes. Rather than force a stubborn chain to work, he attempts to coax it loose with small adjustments and applications of sprayed oil. Finally he takes a pair of pliers in each hand and wiggles the kink loose on the sea-blue bike then hands it off to Whelan. She disappears on it for a few minutes and returns with a report: The brakes don’t respond right away and shifting gears still is difficult. A few minor adjustments later and the bike is ready to go.

That was the second bike of the day. Anecito may have time for one more to add to the approximately 30 he has finished so far.

“I’m not done,” he said. “I’m trying to do as many as I can.”

Anecito and Whelan moved north from California in September of 2005. They took a few months to explore the southern Oregon Coast and find where they wanted to semi-retire. It was Reedsport’s weather that drew them in, especially the lack of harsh wind, Whelan said.

“I think it’s paradise, “ Anecito added. “ I’ve never had so much water to go fishing in.”

The couple’s sort-of-retirement business is running the car wash on Fir Avenue.

“It’s the only job I could find where I could do the least amount of work and get away with it,” Anecito said.

That gives him all the more time and help out the lodges with the bikes. He said fixing cars and bikes has been a lifelong hobby.

Evidence of his projects populate the garage and driveway of the couple’s home. Whelan’s 35-year-old pickup just needs new paint to finish off Anecito’s restoration. A refurbished mountain bike hangs on hooks in the garage and a future project, an ancient-looking bicycle, leans against Whelan’s truck. He likes the older bikes because they are simple and, in his opinion, the ride is better. The key is the chain, Anecito said. He pointed to the even spacing between the links of the newer bike he was working on and the uneven spacing on the old bike’s chain. That slight design difference gives the bike a much smoother ride.

But Anecito’s favorite, a shiny red Schwinn, was the bike that brought his abilities to the attention of Moose Lodge members.

“I was the neighborhood fixer-of -everything back when I was growing up and it just kind of stuck,” Anecito said. “When I started showing off my Schwinn, it kind of gave me away.”

It started just as an occasional favor but grew into an all-year-long undertaking. This is the second year he has restored bikes for the Moose lodge and the first for the Eagles.

Anecito finds a use for every bike donated. Looking through his bone yard of donated bikes, he estimates that for every three bikes donated, two are functional enough for repair. Those that cannot be fixed are turned into parts bikes.

He sees the venture as a challenge and that part makes it fun for Anecito.

“You never know until he starts cleaning them what is under all that dirt and rust,” Whelan said.

Anecito adds that he is just one part of the donation program. The collection and distribution of the bikes is handled by the lodges.

“None of this would happen without the donations,” he said. “They bring them to me and I fix them. They make sure (the bikes) go to the right people.”