DICKINSON - Hang on to your wallet when Jason Lachenmeier and Mitch Hintz, both of Dickinson, are around.

See them and it's guaranteed they'll have 20 of your hard-earned dollars in their hands before it's over.

Then they smile, oh so nice, and a person can't help but feel really good about being legally robbed in plain daylight.

These two "con men" couldn't be less alike.

For one thing, Lachenmeier, 30, is twice as old as Hintz.

Lachenmeier, with a thread of gray in his dark hair, deals blackjack for a living at the Spur Bar and Grill. He shoots pool for a hobby. Hintz plays computer games and studies for history tests at Dickinson High School.

Lachenmeier is one of those old married guys. Hintz is working his way through his freshman year of high school.

But make no mistake: They are hell on wheels.

Last year, they and their team made off with $11,000 and first place.

It was for a good cause.

But just imagine that virtual swath of people they hit, still patting their cleaned-out pockets and shaking their heads in bewilderment.

Their team is Mitch's Mighty Dickinson Riders, and 10 of them will once again ride stationary bikes for 25 minutes in the Great American Bike Race on April 14 at Bismarck State College.

All of the money they collected was in the form of pledges from people who want to help the cause.

The cause is people like Hintz. He has cerebral palsy. In all his life, he has never felt the weight of his own body on his feet, has never taken those first baby steps, has never gotten to run pell-mell to first base.

His legs are a motorized wheelchair that starts and turns on a dime and has all the mojo two car batteries can provide.

Money from the Great American Bike Race - organized by Medcenter One Rehabilitation Center - buys wheelchairs, therapy, shoes and medication for people with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. It bought one for Hintz, a lighter manual chair so he can go places a heavy motorized chair can't.

Last year's race, the 10th, drew a record 52 teams. This year, 88 are signed up.

Hintz can't ride, so he's a cheerleader and moneymaker, raising thousands himself over the past four years.

It's competitive and fun.

"I like beating people," Hintz says.

His mom, Donalda, gives him the elbow and reminds him that last time he said he liked helping people.

Lachenmeier nods his head, siding with Mitch's mom. He heard the same thing from Hintz, last time, too.

Hintz is 15. So he just grins.

Lachenmeier and Hintz got to their wheelchairs by very different journeys: Hintz's from his premature birth, when he weighed 2 pounds. Lachenmeier, originally of Hardin, Mont., was on his way to Dickinson State University to be a freshman wrestler. He was 19. A bad car wreck changed his life.

Six months later, he left the hospital a paraplegic, though he can use his left leg more than doctors ever thought he would.

He got interested in joining Mitch's Mighty Riders because he knows Mitch Hintz's grandma, Darlyn Larson, a bartender at the Spur Bar.

Last year, Lachenmeier put the one leg he can move inside a stationary bike pedal stirrup and worked up to a heck of a cramp, but he rode the whole 25 minutes.

This year, he plans to tape his left foot to the pedal so it doesn't flop out of the stirrup like it did last year.

He has a surprise for Hintz, but he isn't telling him yet.

Let's just say, so we don't spoil the news, that last year, Lachenmeier raised $7,000 of the team's total, more than any other participant in the Great American Bike Race. This year, he outdid himself.

"This is the neatest thing I've ever done. Being in a wheelchair myself, just to help people, hits me right here," Lachenmeier says, thumping his own heart.

He's got that wrestler strength. He lifts himself into his adapted pickup, reaches down, and expertly folds and tosses his wheelchair in the seat behind him.

He's off to a local car body shop, to ever-so-openly pick the pockets of a few guys he knows who haven't yet had the privilege of giving to such a worthy cause. They're going to say "no" to a guy in a wheelchair, raising money for kids in wheelchairs? Right. Sure.

They won't know they've been rolled, either, until they go looking for those 10-spots they could have sworn they had earlier.

Mitch Hintz gets that grin again, watching his pal on wheels take off in his pickup. He knows money for kids like him rolls in wherever Lachenmeier rolls out. They're a team.

Anyone who wants to support Mitch's Mighty Riders can contact Hintz at 225-1284 or Lachenmeier at 483-8394. Information on the race is at www.medcenterone.com/gabr.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)