Donors replace Modesto senior’s stolen bicycle

Here’s hoping the fourth time is a charm for David Barnett.

The longtime Modestan, seen by countless residents riding his recumbent bicycles around town for more than 40 years, recently had his third bike stolen. In late August, the 75-year-old was shopping at the Walmart Neighborhood Market on Coffee Road when someone cut or forced the U-lock and made off with it.

He was stranded at the store, his wife, Ruth Ann, wrote in a letter to the editor of The Modesto Bee. “We currently have no car and it is our only means of transportation,” she wrote.

One of the many people who’ve enjoyed seeing Barnett on the roads over the years, James Hoepner, read the letter, which also noted that both Barnetts are undergoing cancer treatment. “It really touched me,” he said.

He reached out to Fun Sport Bikes in McHenry Village, whose co-owner Brian Zahra knows Barnett and who’d already heard from a fellow McHenry Village businessman about the senior cyclist’s loss.

On Thursday afternoon, Zahra presented Barnett with a brand-new Sun Bicycles EZ Sport AX, with a retail value of $1,699. Hoepner said he donated a little toward it, and Zahra and Olas Mexicali Grill owner Ismael Perez split the bulk of the cost between themselves.

“I’ve known Dave since I worked at World of Wheels in ’99 to always be on a recumbent riding around town, always smoking his pipe,” Zahra said. He knows how important a bike is to Barnett, he said. “Him without a bike didn’t make sense.”

Barnett has given up the pipe and is riding less than in younger days.

“If I get 10 miles a day, I’m lucky,” he said. But, Barnett said, he is beyond happy to now get back on the road.

“Overwhelmed, overjoyed and relieved that the whole problem has been resolved,” he said Thursday when asked how it felt to get the new bike. He said his bike was about all he had for getting around town and staying active.

“It flabbergasted me,” he said of the news that Zahra, Perez and Hoepner pitched in on a new ride. “It was one of the last things I expected to happen. I got accustomed to replacing bikes when they were stolen so many times.”

Barnett built his first recumbent bike in the late 1970s and it was stolen in ’82, he said. He built another and it disappeared, too. He bought his third bike and it was stolen from in front of his grandson’s house, he said.

Anyone with information on his recently stolen bicycle, a black and silver recumbent, is asked to call Modesto police at 209-572-9500.

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Donors replace Modesto senior’s stolen bicycle."