Serious Cycling

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February 13, 1997

Serious Cycling

By GREG JOHNSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

You're stopped at a light in your car, sitting on your saddlebags -- you know, the ones below your hips, the ones that balance the spare tire around your waist -- when a group of bicyclists pedal through the intersection.

You ruefully note that their Lycra-clad legs do not resemble a pair of high-fashion hams. That their helmet straps do not disappear between second and third chins.

And how these people are laughing and smiling, not grimacing and grunting like you on the rare occasions when you get off your middle-aged caboose and take the Schwinn out of the shed.

You gotta get serious about cycling, you think to yourself.

Jumping on a pair of skinny tires will certainly help eliminate the spare tire and might keep you a kick ahead of advancing age. It's always been fun, ever since those Stingray days of your youth. And you've always thought maybe one day you'd get in shape and do a long ride such as the renowned "STP" -- the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland Bicycle Classic.

"I didn't start cycling until I was 40," says Sheila Moss, executive director of the Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC), now 55 and an STP veteran. "I was really out of shape. But I worked at it and the more I got into it, the more I enjoyed it. Bicycling has been my joy ever since.

"It's just very special. You get close to nature and the people you ride with."

There is no reason not to hop on a bike if you have the hankering to become a regular rider. Bicycling is big, and serious, in Western Washington (a particularly vivid example is the recent meltdown between police and radical cyclists during a "Critical Mass" ride in downtown Seattle).

Seattle repeatedly ranks among the top 10 cycling cities in America in surveys by magazines such as "Bicycling" (November/December 1995). There are numerous clubs that offer organized rides, camaraderie and encouragement, including the 5,000-member CBC, which calls itself the largest bicycling club in the nation -- and whose leaders quickly distanced themselves from the Critical Mass mess.

At the same time, bicycle varieties, technology, equipment and apparel have never been more advanced and available.

And only the ancient are too old to ride.

"We ride with some guys who are 80, and they can outride many people in the club," says Jane Whiteley of Seattle, a CBC member who last summer at 54 rode STP in a day. "There's one guy who's 80 and rides STP. He can dust any of us."

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