Columnist Susan Snyder: Rewards are in cycle recycling

Tuesday, May 25, 2004 | 8:18 a.m.

When a bicycle is broken, battered and brakeless, most people see junk.

Paul Rognlein sees independence.

A few turns of the wrench, some refurbished parts, a new set of tires and what once sat idle in the corner of someone's garage becomes transportation for someone who hasn't many options.

Rognlein is the mind and mechanic behind Community Bike Re-Cycle, a program for the Community Lutheran Church's Community Outreach Helping Others (COHO) ministry.

Rognlein's paid job is working as custodian for the massive church that sits at 3274 E. Tropicana Ave. He started and runs the bicycle recycling program as a volunteer.

He takes bicycles donated by local agencies or individuals, repairs and replaces whatever is needed, then gives them to adults who need transportation. At Christmas, Rognlein also refurbished 60 children's bicycles for Angel Tree and other programs.

But adults are his focus. Rognlein wants to give some transportation options to help people who are trying to make a fresh start. He has repaired and given away about 200 bicycles since he launched his unique ministry in March 2003.

"For a while there, I was working 40 hours a week on the clock and another 40 hours or more on bicycles," the 42-year-old Las Vegan said. "I probably put in too much (money) out of my own pocket. It's a compulsion or obsession."

But one that makes him grin.

Rognlein moved to Las Vegas in 2002 after closing his 20-year small-machine repair business in Wisconsin. A self-taught bicycle mechanic, he's been rebuilding bikes since he was a youngster.

He recalled fiddling around with a Schwinn Stingray when he was about 10, fitting it with fatter tires and motorcycle handlebars and trading the banana seat for a regular bike seat. He went into a bicycle shop and spotted a bike similar to the one he'd just made.

"They said, 'Yeah, that's a BMX bike. They're building these in California,' " he said.

By the time Rognlein was 12 he'd destroyed so many dime-store screwdrivers and wrenches, he blew his savings on some real tools.

"I went to Sears and bought a Craftsman tool set. It cost me $38," Rognlein said. "That's what got me started."

He took a bicycle mechanics class in seventh grade and was taking an auto repair class in high school when he learned that the future of automobile engines lay in computers.

Rognlein liked working on mechanical things. So he moved away from cars and became certified to work on small engines, such as those for snowmobiles and motorcycles. He opened his own small-engine repair shop and learned how to work on just about anything that ran on gasoline or plugged into the wall.

"Being a small-engine mechanic in the country means people bring you everything -- their hair dryers, their washing machines," he said. "I worked my tail off."

Froze it off, too. That helped inspire his move to Las Vegas in July 2002. A month later he was working for Community Lutheran Church. And within six months, he was spending his free time refurbishing bicycles for people who couldn't afford to buy one but needed to get to work.

Church officials welcomed the bicycles for those in the organization's welfare program. They added Rognlein's efforts to their outreach ministries and gave him a room in the church for storage and a workshop.

But Rognlein has more bikes than the church needs. So he gives them away to others. He recently hooked up with a couple of recovery houses and provides bicycles to the men, many of whom cannot obtain driver's licenses or afford vehicles or bus fare.

The recovery program directors insist that the men pay for their bikes, so Rognlein charges $20 for bikes that are worth far more. He uses the money to buy tires, tubes, cables and other materials that can't be stripped from old bikes and reused.

Even Rognlein's workshop at the church is a testament to his ingenuity. Two donated bicycle work stands sit along opposite walls.

Dozens of spoked wheels without tires are lined up according to size under the work table and stacked on shelves to the ceiling. Other shelves are stacked with various sizes and varieties of bicycle tires.

A box that once held quarts of cherries now contains sets of brakes. There are plastic bins full of wheel hubs and gear cassettes. There's a whole box of pedals, another filled with cranksets and another stuffed with derailleurs.

Handlebars of various shapes stick over the top of a bigger plastic bin on a top shelf, and a huge tin pan below it holds bicycle chains.

Rognlein's store of tools is contained in a workbench he made from a copy machine the church discarded. Drawers that once held copy paper now contain wrenches of every imaginable design and size. He removed the glass and other innards and inserted a plastic basin to hold bigger tools.

"There really aren't any parts I can't use, so I don't throw anything away," he said.

Bicycles of every size and type are lined up along the hallway. More are stacked in a storage room.

Finding bicycles isn't a problem. The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada always has bikes to donate because so many people leave them on buses and never claim them. Metro Police, individuals from the church and bicycle club members from across the valley also give Rognlein bikes.

A handful of boys from the church have pitched in to help. Rognlein delights in helping them learn to use tools, and the group often goes on short bicycle rides for pizza afterward.

"The stuff I'm teaching them is not specific to bikes. Bearings and grease, load pressure on a bearing, tension on a cable -- you can apply it to anything mechanical," he said. "The boys aren't out on the street, and they're learning something about values."

Rognlein needs more of everything except bicycles -- more storage space, more volunteers and more money to buy items the bicycles really need to be worthy of their transportation role.

"It's one thing to do all this charity work. It's another thing to get it funded," he said. "I'd like to send all the bikes out with helmets, lights and locks."

Anyone who would like to donate to Community Bike Re-Cycle should contact Susan Treganowan, Community Lutheran Church outreach director, 458-2241, Ext. 212. Or e-mail her at susan@clclv.org.

Giving a bike to an adult who needs one isn't like giving a toy to a child.

It's better.

"It's gotten a lot of people to work," Rognlein said.