bamabikeguy
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Pretty Cool !!
'Depression vehicle' makes man smile
By Tabatha Hunter Staff Writer ! tabathah@nwanews.com
http://nwanews.com/bcdr/News/73458/
Daren Garner compared the difficulty of cutting and shaping steel parts for his motorized bicycle with a hacksaw blade to breaking out of jail with the same tool. Garner is a homeless job seeker from Rock Island, Ill., who, when not riding his bicycle in search of work, does volunteer work at Helping Hands in Bentonville.(Daily Record photograph by David Frank Dempsey)
'Depression vehicle' makes man smile
By Tabatha Hunter Staff Writer ! tabathah@nwanews.com
BENTONVILLE, Arkansas - "This is my depression vehicle. No matter how bad things get, I know it will work," said Daren Garner of Rock Island, Ill., as he proudly displayed his motorized bicycle.
After finding himself laid off in February 2008, Garner mowed lawns and worked doing any odds and ends he could find to pay the bills, but that only went so far. Before long, the bank wanted his house back.
With no home, no job and no prospects, Garner boarded a bus headed for northwest Arkansas, hoping the job market would be better here.
Since he arrived two months ago, Garner has put in work applications in hopes of getting a job as a mechanic or a hotel maintenance man, or just anything he can do to make an honest day's wage, he said.
Shortly after arriving in Bentonville, Garner decided he needed some form of transportation to allow him to travel to and from job interviews. With that in mind, he started to build a motorized bicycle.
Using a bike that was donated to him through Helping Hands, Garner searched for parts in trash bins around town - anything he could find to make the bicycle work, he said.
He traded an old laptop computer to get the motor from a skateboard scooter. A piece of scrap metal he found one day became the bike's motor mount. He hit the jackpot when he found a solarpowered battery charger. He mounted the charger on the bike's handlebars to power his headlight and iPod.
With a maximum speed of 45 mph, Garner's bicycle gets him around town in a timely manner.
"I passed a guy on a scooter (Wednesday). When I passed him, I saw his mouth drop," Garner said. "I just slowed down a little bit, looked at him, sort of smiled a little bit, hit the gas and passed him by. I am sure he was thinking, 'How did I just get passed by a bicycle?'"
Everything on the bike - except for the belt and ring in the rear wheel's spokes that allows the motor to propel the bicycle - was assembled by Garner, he said.
The bicycle took Garner just more than two months to complete, which was like going to therapy, he said.
"This was a building project that was just healing to me," Garner said. "Put me in a garage full of parts and a few motors, and I would be just tickled."
If he is still unable to get a job in the coming weeks, Garner plans to ride his bicycle to Nebraska, where he has heard there are manufacturing jobs available.
http://nwanews.com/bcdr/News/73458/