Gary Sarten, known in Waitara as the Bike Dude, gives away bikes to children.

Gary Sarten fixes up bikes and gives them away to children. Helen Harvey reports.

Gary Sarten doesn't wear a watch. He doesn't own a cell phone. And he doesn't like the term man cave - it's too modern for him. The building where he spends most of his time is called a shed.

It used to be the cowshed, so the floor in one part slopes down slightly. The shed has an old pot belly stove that has been fixed up about 10 times, but still cranks out a lot of heat in the winter.

Along one wall a row of hubcaps are displayed, a couple of old trikes hang from the ceiling and an old 1962, or maybe it's a 63, Morris 1000 sits in a corner.

In the opposite corner are a pile of parts that belong to a 1930 Chrysler 66.

READ MORE:

* Kiwibank Local Hero award recognises Neville's work with lost boys

* Founder of Hawera's Koha Shed nominated for national award

He bought it when he was 20, Sarten, 64, says.

"I want to restore it since it's been sitting around for 40 years. I can't be accused of rushing in."

The rest of the large shed, a smaller shed and an old glasshouse, are filled with bikes, tyres, bikes, handle bars, bikes, pedals and bikes.

Sarten is known around Waitara way as the Bike Dude, because he gives bikes to youngsters who wouldn't otherwise have one. He reckons he used to give away about a "hundy" a year, but now a conservative estimate would put it closer to 200 a year. But who knows, because he doesn't keep count.

His wife, Charmaine, works with the Maori Women's Welfare League and there are a lot of families who are struggling and haven't got bikes, he says.

"And she works at an after school care programme, so a lot of kids get their bikes from here."

People call him and say they have a family who need bikes and give him the ages of the kids, he says.

"So, I do a family package. And then the kids want to go on (Coastal) Walkway so they need bikes for the parents.

"For me, a nice buzz is seeing a kid having a really nice time on something I've resurrected."

And he can spot his bikes - some of them are quite recognisable - it might be an orange bike with a green wheel. But he would never put a pink wheel on a boy's bike, he says.

Last year Sarten was awarded a Kiwibank Local Hero Award and was a regional finalist in the TSB Pride of New Zealand awards.

The awards raised Sarten's profile, something he is not totally comfortable with.

"It's nice to be recognised, but I'm low profile. I don't advertise this is. It's all under the radar. But now my little underground hobby has blown out a little bit."

Since the awards he has had bikes delivered on trailers, trucks, and in a horse float.

"A lot are wrecks, but they are given with good intent. I strip whatever is good and I have a scrap yard out the back there."

The scrap pays for bits and pieces he needs for the bikes, so he doesn't spend too much, he says.

"This is my retirement project, which has a huge tendency to get out of hand."

It's not an obsession, he says. But it is something he has been doing his whole life.

Sarten's first bike was a girl's bike - he was a "bit gutted" about that - that his father did up for him, he says.

He grew up in the same Lepperton house where he still lives and the Lepperton dump used to be near Sentry Hill. Neither Sarten nor his mates were allowed to ride on the main road, so they'd ride to the main road, then push their bikes to the dump.

"The dump was heaven. That's where we sourced all our parts. We'd load up the bikes and ride home."

His father was very supportive of his hobby, even if he did moan about all the wrecks his son brought home, Sarten says.

﻿

Back in the day his mum would make him two thick sandwiches for lunch, fill a Fanta bottle with water, and he and his friends would be off on their bikes for the day, he says.

"You could fill your Fanta bottle up at any pond, any creek, any river, and never get sick. I wouldn't want to try that social experiment now. I can't really imagine what my childhood would have been like without a bike."

As a teenager, bikes took a back seat to cars, but then he had a son, Ben, so had the perfect excuse to get back into bikes.

"He had his mates and a lot of them had broken bikes, flat tyres. We went to the Urenui dump for a drive and we'd fill our later model Morris car with bike bits and bring them home. He loved it."

Ben was killed in a car accident when he was 17.

"That was a sad time. Life's never the same. I still think of him. And a lot of his mates bring their kids to fix up their bikes."

Fixing bikes is not an obsession, he says. He's had a few day jobs.

His first, after he finished his apprenticeship, was as a home appliance serviceman. Another job he enjoyed was working at Sentry Hill Winery for 12 years.

"I made Garrison Red and Port of Taranaki. Any job with alcohol interested me. It was fascinating."

But he gave up about five years ago.

"Mum and Dad were in their 80s and needed a bit of time. And I didn't need the job. I mow lawns, fix lawnmowers, do light engineering. Anything old and low tech I can work out why it's not going and fix it."

He's never advertised, he says.

"Because I've been here for a long time people get to hear about you."

Sarten's father farmed the Lepperton property until the mid 1970s. The person who bought the farm didn't want the house, so his father offered it to him, he says.

"Even then I could see this was an opportunity, so I moved back in 1980. I'd done my big OE - I went to Tikorangi for eight years."

The house has recently been totally refurbished, he says.

"I met a nice lady and got married about eight years ago, so I'm under new management. She reckoned the old place looked a bit rough."

Most of his collections are in the sheds dotted around the place. One shed has old heaters, old electric jugs, egg beaters and irons neatly lining the walls.

"I like things to be recycled. I just like old stuff in general. I'm a bit indiscriminate when it comes to collecting things."

The sheds holding the bikes, bike parts and his other collectibles are surrounded by manicured lawns and trees.

He looks around. Maybe he does have some kind of "obsessive bike disorder", he jokes.

"But while there's a need... it's nice to see kids going away happy and having some fun."