Our World: A shiny new bike

On a muggy Wednesday night in June, the clanking of tools and country music drift from a barn in East Naples. Mikel Mauric, 14, slips outside, wheeling out another repaired bike and adds it to a group parked outside.

Go inside and you'll find three volunteers focusing their attention on bicycles clamped to work stands in front of them, surrounded by a room filled with neatly arranged tires, tools and bike parts. Damaged pieces come off, replaced by new components from nearby hooks and shelves.

They are volunteers for Bikes for Tykes, an organization that collects donated bikes and refurbishes them for needy kids.

"We want some kids who've had nothing but bad luck in their lives to feel, at least for one day, that the world isn't so terrible," says Skip Riffle, founder and president of the non-profit group. The group gives about 95 percent of the repaired bikes to the Children's Network to distribute to underprivileged kids during the holidays.

About 20 years ago, Riffle started the program. Now he has a group of volunteers that renew 200-300 bikes a year. Two or three volunteers regularly work on bikes each week in the off season, and in season the number of volunteers swells to as many as 10, working two days a week.

Photo by Tracy Boulian, Daily News

"Whoever thought it's just a bicycle?" Riffle says of the experience — for him, the volunteers and the kids that get almost-new bikes. "So many of us take it for granted. I never believed in the power of it, but I've seen it over and over again."

Volunteers don't need any experience working on bikes: They can be trained to make the repairs. Riffle says people can donate their old bikes by calling him at 774-5846.