Daring Adventures, which provides recumbent bicycles for community events that can be used by people with disabilities, was forced to stop its services because a thief stole over two-thirds of its inventory.

A burglar broke into the charity's storage container near 25th and Peoria avenues and stole the bikes designed for people with disabilities between Friday night and early Saturday morning last weekend, according to Phoenix police.

The thief broke the lock on the storage container and removed several bikes worth thousands of dollars, said Detective Luis Samudio, a public information officer for the Phoenix Police Department.

Jerry Ketelhut, the director of nonprofit Daring Adventures, said he lost around $30,000 worth of bikes between the theft this weekend and a theft in November.

But the impact on opportunities for people in the disabled community is much greater.

"We, as able bodied individuals, take it for granted that we can get on a bike or to go buy a bike at the local store," Ketelhut said. "The individuals we serve don't have the funds to go out and buy a $2,500 or $4,000 piece of equipment to go cycling."

Ketelhut has been forced to suspend the cycling program for Daring Adventures because of the limited number of bikes he has left.

"The first time when it happened in November, I was shocked that anybody would do this," Ketelhut said. "But we were able to continue on with our cycling program with some additional bikes we were borrowing. Now that it's happened a second time, I'm devastated."

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Ketelhut said there isn't a large market for selling recumbent bicycles, so it is likely the bikes the thief took are being turned into scrap for reclamation.

Ketelhut and the police are monitoring online resale sites for recumbent bicycles that might be linked to the theft from Daring Adventures.

Donate to Daring Adventures at https://www.daring-adventures.org/.