GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) — For 13-year-old Colby, summertime means bike rides.
“Colby’s on the autism spectrum, so he doesn’t have a whole lot of interests,” Tracy Eastman, Colby’s mom said. “He likes to spend a lot of time indoors, but the one thing that he really did like doing was riding his bike outside.”
This summer he was gifted a bike a family friend had fixed up.
“It was a special ‘Got Milk’ bike. He called it his chocolate milk bike,” Tracy told Local 5.
The limited edition Huffy was released in the late 90’s, and was living a second life with Colby.
One morning, Tracy noticed something was missing: Colby’s bike was missing, apparently stolen from the family’s garage.
Tracy filed a police report and posted pictures of the unique bike on facebook.
That’s where Courtney Brunette saw it.
“I looked at this bike and it dawned on me: this is the same bike I had as a kid,” Courtney told Local 5.
She had that same bike, all the way down to the “Got Milk” logo.
The only problem: it wasn’t in the best condition.
“From sitting for so many years it had been a little bit rusted and a little bit, you know, well loved,” she said.
A local bike shop recommended the Green Bay Bicycle Collective to get the bike back into shape.
“The president of GBBC contacted me and said, ‘Glenn could you do your magic on this bike?’ So I said, ‘gladly,'” Glenn Schmidt, a volunteer and board member with the Green Bay Bicycle Collective said.
Glenn’s magic was actually a lot of hard work.
“The front wheel was bent, the bearings were all dried from grease, the shifters didn’t work,” he told Local 5.
Glenn made all of those repairs Pro bono.
“They brought it over, fixed up just like new,” Tracy said, “and now he has his chocolate milk bike again.”
It’s a second life for the chocolate milk bike.
“It’s cool to see it have life again and be used and somebody love it so much like we did,” Courtney said.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GREEN BAY BICYCLE COLLECTIVE.
