With a little help from his friends, Kenny Cropper is getting by much easier these days as he pilots his bicycle up the steep Koostra Farm Hill near his home on Glen Lily Road.

Cropper’s 12-mile round trip commute to and from his part-time job at the Howard’s Cycling & Fitness bicycle shop on Park Street is not nearly as challenging after the 60-year-old got a big assist from friends he has made during his 18 years at Howard’s.

With his learning disability leaving him unable to get a driver’s license, Cropper has ridden bicycles around Warren County for decades and picked up the skills needed to be a bicycle mechanic and help other riders keep pedaling.

Now those patrons have repaid him – in a big way.

A Facebook fundraiser started by Howard’s Sales Manager Tracy Rossi took off faster than Cropper on a downhill run, raising nearly $4,000 in just a few days and allowing store management to present Cropper with a new Serfas eDASH electric bicycle last week.

Donations ranging from a few dollars to a few hundred poured in, mostly from Howard’s customers who have known Cropper and were aware of his plight. The response was such that Rossi said he was able to buy a higher-end e-bike than originally planned and even purchase some accessories for the bicycle that can be pedal-powered or battery-assisted.

“The initial goal was $1,500, and we had a bike picked out,” Rossi said. “We obtained that pretty quickly. The donations got bigger and bigger, and we ended up ordering him a more expensive bike because of the generosity of the community.

“Kenny is going to have enough money in his account to add accessories and get the proper apparel.”

Known in the local bicycling community as “606” for his BMX bike racing number, Cropper grinned like he had just won one of those races as he stood outside Howard’s last Wednesday after taking his new e-bike for a test drive.

“I’m pretty well happy with it,” he said. “I want to thank all the people in Bowling Green for helping me buy the bike. Everybody loves me at Howard’s.”

That love was manifested in the fundraiser, which Rossi said grew out of a need he saw.

“This has kinda been on my mind for a couple years now,” Rossi said. “Over the last few years his (Cropper’s) fitness was going downhill. When I first started working here six years ago he had legs like a Tour de France rider.

“He hasn’t been riding as much lately. People will give him rides to and from work. I asked him if it would be OK if I did this (fundraiser). He was kinda shy about it, but he said to go ahead and do it.”

Rossi and Howard’s owner Gary Cox kicked off the fundraiser with their own donations and then watched it grow.

“The Howard’s community stepped up,” Rossi said. “This is a gift to Kenny for what he has done for the bicycling community for the past 18 years.”

A former farmhand who came to bicycling out of necessity, Cropper can now navigate the hills and curves near the home he shares with his mother.

“I’m gonna love every bit of it for the rest of my life,” Cropper said of his new wheels. “It will make it easier on me.”