The man who gives away bicycles.
FERRELL SURETTE’S COMPANY GIVES REFURBISHED BICYCLES TO STRUGGLING FAMILIES AND THE HOMELESS.
Lifelong Houstonian and bicycle enthusiast Ferrell Surette has spent his entire 52 years in this city around bicycles. Five years ago, he found a way to make sure that kids in Houston could have that same chance.
Bicycles mean many things to many people. For a person in need of transportation, a bicycle means freedom, maybe even employment opportunities. For some, it’s a means to unlock parts of the city that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to explore with a car. For others, it’s a means of exercise, a way to commune with the road or a trail and sweat away the day’s stresses.
You’d be surprised what you can discover about the city — or even yourself — when you step out of the car and onto two wheels. Sights, smells and sounds become amplified. There is no barrier of metal and plastic between the city and the rider. Just hot wind.
Five years ago Surette wanted to find a way to give back to his hometown’s cycling community. He started Recycled Cycles of Texas (facebook.com/RCOTX/) from inside a small shed, taking unwanted or broken bicycles and putting them back into the community.
He doesn’t charge anything for the refurbished bikes, and his operation has been aided mostly by fellow cyclists and a cast of supportive friends and family. They’ve been able to help him with supplies. Sometimes people will collect a handful of worn-out bikes and donate them to the cause.
Surette’s burgeoning operation is in Houston’s Lindale Park neighborhood, near his house. A storage container has been turned into his own bicycle-repair shop. When he’s not tinkering on bikes, he works for UPS driving 18-wheelers of freight all across Houston.
It’s become a family mission of sorts. He and his wife are bankrolling this on their own with the generosity of friends who donate cash or extra bike parts.
“My oldest daughter’s house is a drop-off spot for people in the Baytown area, my youngest daughter helps me work on the bicycles, and my wife helps with time management,” Surette says.
Slowly but surely, the rest of the city and Surrette’s own community of cyclists and hot-rod fanatics began to take notice of his weekend hobby.
Back in July, a crew from KTRK (Channel 13) came by his little cycle shed to profile his work, which he says led to an influx of bike donations, keeping him busy for the rest of the summer.
Most bikes are donated and need only minimal rehabilitation. Some still have many, many miles of usefulness left on their frame. Simple fixes go a long way.
Each bike gets a RCOTX sticker on it so Surette — who has given away more than 100 bikes since his project began — can see them in the wild.
“Mostly I just have to replace tubes to get a bicycle back on the road,” he says. “If a bicycle is beyond an easy fix, I normally disassemble it and store the useful parts to use on a future bike. If parts are broken or rusted, I pile them up and recycle them at a recycling center.” Magic carpet on two wheels
According to bicycling advocate Chris Rickard, who owns the ORPBMX bicycle shop in the Bear Creek area, the project has endless possibilities.
“He is an old-school punk rocker, so we jibe,” Rickard says.
“I donate all the time because it helps others out. If he can get a bike for free and fix it up, it’s like recycling. Most shops can do it, and most just choose not to.”
Surette says that some shops would rather sell a customer a new bike than spend parts and labor on rehabbing an older one.
At his core, Surette is driven by his love of the open road and adventure. It’s doubly satisfying when he is able to give a bike to an adolescent because he remembers what having a bike of his own meant to him growing up in a dysfunctional household.
“It was my magic carpet that allowed me to get away,” he says. “I would get home from school and leave as soon as I could. A bicycle was always my escape.”
One of Surette’s biggest fans is his friend Liliana Calvillo. After Hurricane Harvey destroyed most of her small family’s possessions, Surette was able to give her son a bicycle to find a bit of normalcy amid a lot of uncertainty.
“Since my roommate’s son and my son lost most of their toys in the flood, Ferrell contacted us and invited us over,” Calvillo says. “Little did we know, he had fixed up some bikes for the boys. It was the most amazing thing ever. We were at a loss for words.”
Once they had their bikes, the boys were both able to go out and meet new friends around the neighborhood in which they had been they resettled.
“It’s been a crazy two years, but it made moving and dealing with the flood so much easier for the boys,” Calvillo says.
Surette eventually noticed the boys had outgrown the bikes, and soon he came back with bigger ones. He was even able to fix up a bike for Calvillo so she and her son can ride around the bayou trails together.
‘Only eight bikes today’
A Wall Street Journal column this summer titled “America Needs More Kids on Bikes” eloquently argued for a return of the bicycle as a tool for selfreliance and exploration.
“A chain gliding over a cogset is a miracle of engineering, but the joy of a bicycle is the liberation it provides,” sports and humor columnist Jason Gay wrote. “You’re the captain of your own ship, dependent on no one, free to escape, explore and experience, the three essential e’s of human growth. I know you can go somewhere in a car or the bus or the plane, but this is different. A bicycle is an extension of you.”
The magic doesn’t end once you get your first driver’s license. As an adult, bikes are still a form of therapy for Surette.
“I still find comfort in getting on a bicycle and escaping the day-to-day stress. As I’ve gotten older, working on an old busted bicycle is therapeutic as well,” he says.
Surette estimates that he has given away 20 bikes at Discovery Green. He and his youngest daughter usually show up on Saturday or Sunday mornings with a handful of bikes in the back of his hot rod 1958 Ford F-100. Curiosity gets the better of passersby, and they begin to ask about the collection of two-wheelers.
“We line the bicycles up and just wait,” Surette says. “Eventually someone asks about them, and we give them away. I can see the parents strapping them to cars and trucks.”
“The kids are all smiles and can’t wait to ride or have one they can call their own,” he says. “The adults are very appreciative.”
The bike drops at Houston’s homeless encampments are a surreal glimpse into a desperation that many of us will never encounter.
On a recent Saturday morning, I witnessed this firsthand, just blocks from Minute Maid Park. Surette and I pulled up at an intersection north of the stadium, under U.S. 59, and almost immediately his trailer was surrounded by people.
“I only have eight bikes today,” Surette tells the crowd, some with sweaty hands already on a pair of handlebars.
These bikes are older and somewhat worn, built for adults and better suited for city riding. A bicycle that is in good condition just makes getting around easier. A few verbal arguments pop up, and Surette, sensing the tension, gestures for the men and women to take what they need. With a rush of agitated excitement, his flatbed trailer is cleared of bikes almost immediately. A few men shake hands with Surette in gratitude. Others ask when he’s coming back with more.
Surette would like to see his brainchild branch out beyond the Bayou City. Franchises of cyclists just like him with small workshops cranking out refurbished magic carpets with handlebars.
“Spreading the idea to maybe others who can help nationwide would be dope,” he says. “I feel this is way more personable, and if it did move to other cities or states, I would feel confident that it would succeed.”