Archive for the ‘Cyclist of the Month’ Category

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“I love Seattle, and I love biking. I want those to mesh together.”

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013 by

Cyclist of the month: Quinn Hairston
Age: 33
Wheels: Kona Dew Plus
Occupation: Nanny

In August of 2009, Quinn Hairston, frustrated with bus commuting, bought a bike.

“I was tired of riding the bus. I started biking to get away from people. It was nice to have alone time, and as I started riding, I realized biking was also more convenient,” Hairston said.

She started riding from the Central District to Magnolia, a 16-mile round trip commute.

“It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. It took me longer at first but then, kind of by accident, I discovered the bike path through downtown,” Hairston said.

Riding 16 miles a day, Hairston quickly discovered the joy of biking and started to ride her bike everywhere she went. She even challenged herself by signing up for the 2010 Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic.

With a little less than a year to train, Hairston started going on long weekend rides and built her fitness up to where she could complete 60 miles in one day. But then she got doored.

“I was hurt for a while but got back on the bike and continued to train,” said Hairston. “Until I got hit.”

Hairston was struck by a car in the crosswalk of the intersection of Stone Way and 34th Street in Fremont. She suffered from several pinched nerves along her spine, causing pain and numbness in her legs and arms.

“It took me a while to recover and not be in pain while riding,” she said. “I especially had trouble gripping my handlebars for long periods of time. I could no longer go 30 miles, let alone 60 or the 100 that would be required to complete even one day of the STP.”

While she had to give up on completing the STP that year, Hairston did continue to bike commute.

“I had become more hesitant, and I didn’t ride for fun anymore,” Hairston said. “But I was able to stay on smaller roads [for my commute], and it wasn’t as stressful.”

It took four months for Hairston to get her confidence back, and by 2011, she was mostly back to normal, riding her bike to work and for fun.

As though her perseverance hadn’t already been tested enough, Hairston got hit again.

The collisions with cars and the countless times she had experienced close-calls or been yelled at by drivers turned Hairston’s hesitance into anger and frustration.

“I didn’t bike at all last year,” Hairston said. “For the most part because my commute changed. I was now commuting from Northgate to Ballard and the road conditions were horrible. I didn’t feel comfortable.”

Hairston started driving. But after nine months of driving she started to really miss her bike.

“I felt myself becoming a car person, and I don’t want to be a car person!” Hairston said.

Slowly but surely, Hairston started biking again.

“It felt great to be on a bike again,” she said. “And then my bike got stolen. After all my troubles, that was hard. It hurt my feelings. There were three other bikes in the garage but they only took mine.”

This is when Hairston’s friends and family started to point out that maybe the universe was trying to tell her to not bike.

But she keeps going.

“When I got doored, I thought it was just a matter of time for it to happen. When I got hit, I recognized that the danger comes with the activity,” Hairston said. “I really enjoy biking and I wasn’t going to let that take it away from me.”

Hairston admits that if her collisions had resulted in more severe injuries, she might be saying something differently.

“Cars and bikes don’t mix. We need to find a way to get bikes away from cars,” Hairston said. “I lived in Europe and I used to see these bikers without their helmet riding around. They looked adorable and were biking like it’s a fashion statement. I used to think they were crazy but when I started biking, I realized they could do that because they were completely comfortable being separated from cars.”

Hairston said she dreams of a Seattle with bike-only paths and riding around on an xtracycle with kids on the back and carrying cargo.

“I love Seattle, and I love biking. I want those to mesh together,” she said. “I have high hopes for the bike plans in development. People should [be able to] bike to work and not drive, and I love knowing that so many people do bike and that it’s growing.”

Know a cyclist who deserves some special recognition? Nominate them for cyclist of the month! Send your ideas to Anne-Marije Rook at amrook@cascadebicycleclub.org.

Posted in Cyclist of the Month | No Comments »

“Biking was one of the first things that made me feel empowered….when I was riding, I felt free.”

Monday, December 17th, 2012 by

Cyclist of the month: Roberto Ascalon
Age: 38
Wheels: Trek 520 with fenders, racks and a radio.
Occupation: Teaching artist/youth worker. Major Taylor facilitator and Bike Club leader at Chief Sealth High School.

New York City in the early 1990s with its subway and taxi culture and lack of bicycle infrastructure might seem like an odd place to fall in love with bicycling, but to a then high school-age Roberto Ascalon, none of that mattered. What mattered is that he could get away from his crowded home and go wherever he wanted to go.

“I really fell in love with biking when I was 15 and took a [bike] trip from New York City to Montreal with a group of friends. It was one of the best experiences of my life. But I rode all the time when I was in high school. It gave me independence and freedom and took me to places in New York City that I wouldn’t have gone had I not had a bike,” Ascalon said. “Biking was one of the first things that made me feel empowered. We often had eight people in a three-bedroom place. Biking allowed me to get away and ride to Central Park. When I was riding my bike, I felt free.”

Now, years later, Ascalon is trying to introduce that sense of empowerment, freedom and adventure to the youth he works with at Chief Sealth High School. As a Major Taylor facilitator and Bike Club leader, Ascalon is part of a year-round youth development program, produced by the Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation, that introduces youth from diverse communities to the recreation and health benefits of cycling while teaching them about the importance of working toward individual goals.

“I found that having a bike makes everything accessible,” Ascalon said. “It keeps me in touch with the essentials of feeling good physically, stopping, and making time for adventures every day. That sense of sensibility is especially accessible by bike. That is something I want to bring to youth, and youth of color in particular.”

Ascalon is a man who wears many hats. He’s a poet, a cook, a teaching-artist, a youth worker. He’s involved with the King County Food and Fitness Initiative, Food Education Empowerment and Sustainability Team (FEEST), the Major Taylor Program and the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. If you’re a Delridge or White Center resident, chances are you or your child has heard of him.

“I had always wanted to be a teacher, but took a roundabout way to do it,” said Ascalon, who’s passionate about youth leadership development. “I love cooking, bicycling, and poetry. And those are great vehicles for dialogue with youth.”

The bicycle is one of his favorite tools of education, and he dreams of one day opening up a “full-fledged, fully-accredited high school on bicycles”. He envisions a school that’s centered around the bicycle with time set aside for daily bike rides and each module of the curriculum would culminate in a long-distance ride like the Lewis and Clark Trail or a ride that follows the local salmon migration.

“The bike for me represents adventure and freedom,” Ascalon stated. “But it’s also about fun and style for me. I love the human ingenuity that went into creating such an amazing machine.”

Ascalon’s bike is a Trek 520 touring bike complete with a little radio. “It makes running around town and going to the grocery store more fun. And on the STP I bring a full-on boombox that you can hear half-a-mile away,” he said.

“The bike culture should be an open culture but in Seattle, I find it to be a closed culture – you’ve got the hardcore road bikers and the hipsters on fixies. Neither of them are open,” he said.

The test to see if a culture is open and welcoming is simple, Ascalon said. “When you ride, do you smile, nod or wave at your fellow riders? And do they smile or nod back?”

Ascalon said the biggest obstacles faced by the youth he works with is inaccessibility and closed cultures and communities.

“The cost of bicycles alone is inaccessible and then there is this cultural understanding of needing all this fancy bike gear. A lot of the immigrant youth I work with come from cultures where they see the bicycle differently than we do. It’s their main form of transportation,” said Ascalon.

One of the goals of the Major Taylor Program is to empower youth by giving them the means to explore their neighborhoods and the neighborhoods beyond. MTP promotes bicycling as a form of exercise, recreation, and transportation.

“Major Taylor is about opening up possibilities and show these kids that they can be any kind of rider they want to be,” Ascalon said. “We’re not afraid of putting our kids in spandex even though we know there’s a culture clash for a black kid to hang out in spandex in the Rainier Valley. Major Taylor is very much about creating a community – a supportive, empowering, and safe community. That is the very thing I try to do in all my youth work.”

If Ascalon were to run into one of his Major Taylor students ten years from now, he’d like to see them “physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy.”

“I want them to have reached the goals they’ve set with us [in the MTP], I want them to be biking in some kind of way, but as long as they feel empowered, I don’t care what they’re doing,” he said.

Know a cyclist who deserves some special recognition? Nominate them for cyclist of the month! Send your ideas to Anne-Marije Rook at amrook@cascadebicycleclub.org.

Posted in Cyclist of the Month, Major Taylor Project | 5 Comments »

“Just think about how good it feels to ride and how you want that for your kids, for them to have that freedom to get around on their own volition and have fun.”

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012 by

Cyclist of the month: Tracy Cutchlow
Age: 35
Wheels: Specialized Roubaix road bike. “So that I have a chance of keeping up with [my husband] on his hybrid.”
Occupation: Freelance book editor/mother

 

This fall marks the fourth anniversary of Tracy and Luke Cutchlow’s decision to donate their Saturn to a church across the street and adopt a car-free lifestyle, a lifestyle choice they’re continuing to live even after having their first child.

“We were living in San Francisco at the time and it was more of a pain to have a car than not,” said Tracy, a Cascade Champion. “And we haven’t needed one because we bike so much. It’s our favorite way of getting around.”

That doesn’t mean that it was an altogether easy decision.

“When we first gave up the car, there were months and months where we thought, ‘Can we really do this?’” Tracy recalled. “I tracked how much we spent on a car–the gas, the repairs, even all the little costs you forget about like licensing, emission tests, and car washes–and how much we drove it and where to. We were already biking to work at the time and really, it was more of a mental barrier. It was cheaper to just rent a car or take a taxi than own a car.”

While it was the math that led them to sell their car, it’s the joy of biking has kept them car-free.

“It really helps doing the math on how much it costs to own a car. It changes your perception about paying for a rental or taxi. [The decision to sell the car] was all about the math at first but then what we found was that we really loved it. You spend a lot more time in your neighborhood, interacting with people, and buying locally,” she said.

As an adult, Tracy was reintroduced to the practicality and sheer joy of bicycling while living in one of the most bikeable and walkable cities in the United States: Portland.

While working at the Oregonian, Tracy decided to participate in the newspaper-sponsored Cycle Oregon event, a weeklong bike tour throughout Oregon.

“I was working as a copy editor at nights and weekends so I had all this time during the day to bike,” she explained. “It gave me such a sense of freedom when I was riding,” she recalled. “It was like a 16-year-old getting their first car. I just kept biking because it makes me smile.”

Riding her bike became an integral part of her daily life and she became an avid bike commuter, even well into her pregnancy.

“I’m just waiting for the moment that Geneva turns one and her head can support a helmet.” Tracy said, adding that’s she’s already been browsing Craigslist for child seats.

While she admits to being more scared now than before her pregnancy, she won’t let it keep her from riding bikes with her daughter.

“Becoming a parent changes everything but you just have to be more careful and start slow and safe,” she said. “Seattle does have some good cycling roads, and just think about how good it feels to ride and how you would want that for your kids-for them to have that freedom to get around on your own volition and have fun.”

And she wants everyone to experience that freedom and joy.

“Spandex and jerseys with a whole bunch of logos scares people away. People should feel like they can incorporate biking in everyday life. It doesn’t have to be about going fast, comparing bikes, and needing special gear,” said Tracy.

What is needed, however, is a welcoming bike culture and better infrastructure, she said.

“Living in a walkable, bikeable neighborhood is key. If infrastructure were better and people saw regular bicyclists all the time, they’d be less afraid of biking and it would become normal,” she said. “And that’s why I support Cascade. Because they’re working on that.”

 

Know a cyclist who deserves some special recognition? Nominate them for cyclist of the month! Send your ideas to Anne-Marije Rook at amrook@cascadebicycleclub.org.

Interested in joining Tracy in becoming a Cascade Champion? Contact Tarrell Wright for more information at (206) 240-2235 or tarrell.wright@cascadebicycleclub.org.

Posted in Cyclist of the Month | 1 Comment »

“Once you start logging your miles and see how much you ride, it’s like crack. You just want to ride more.”

Monday, October 8th, 2012 by

This article first appeared as the Cyclist of the Month column in the October 2012 issue of the Cascade Courier, our membership newsletter.

Cyclist of the month: MATTHEW BERNHARD
Age: 35
Wheels: Cannondale Caad 8. “Having been a competitive runner most of my life, I wanted a fast bike. I love this bike. It is a red frame with white lettering and blue handlebar tape. I call it the America racer.”
Occupation: Sr. Marketing Manager – Customer Profitability at AT&T Mobility

Out of the many people we have featured in our Cyclist of the Month series, Matthew Bernhard is probably the first to be nominated for smack talking.

Tom Gibbs, July Cyclist of the Month and this year’s Group Health Commute Challenge Captain of the Year, credits Bernhard for showing him the positive side of cycling’s social nature.

“Matt is a great cyclist,” said Gibbs. “Not only is his technical ability on a bike admirable, but the way that he befriends others and promotes cycling has truly been an inspiration to me.”

When Gibbs’ Commute Challenge team issued a team challenge to the “Don’t Text and Ride” team this past May, Bernhard –who captained that team –responded to the challenge with some good-nature smack talk and a promise of beers for the winning team.

The challenge set in motion the wheels of what would become a fond friendship and amiable rivalry between the two men as they went head-to-head again in the Tour de Redmond challenge this summer.

Similar to the Group Health Commute Challenge, Tour de Redmond is a two-month bicycle commute challenge in which solo riders or teams formed within member organizations compete for trophies and prizes.

“We did awesome. Placed third overall,” said Bernhard. “We struck up a nice little polite contest for Tour de Redmond and [Gibbs’ team] will be buying us beer since we beat them.”

Having been a rower in college and a competitive runner for most of his life, Bernhard thrives on competition.

“There is nothing cooler than forming a team, having a friendly competition to push yourself, and then coming together for beers at the end,” he said. “Bringing that to the workplace is a nice change to the monotony of the daily grind.”

“Cycling is absolutely a social activity. Challenges and competitions are helpful because they provide structure and it’s a great thing for rookies,” Bernhard elaborated. “I thinks it’s incumbent upon people who are experienced riders and know the routes and tricks to bring people under their wings.”

Not too long ago, Bernhard was a rookie himself.

“This is my third summer of bike commuting,” Bernhard stated. “I moved up here four years ago, and when I saw how many people biked, I thought, ‘I have to get in on this.’”

Following a conversation with a pedaling co-worker during Bike Month, Bernhard bought a road bike and started commuting from his Kirkland home to Redmond, a commute of eight miles each way.

“Once you start logging your miles and see how much you ride, it’s like crack,” he said. “You just want to ride more.”

In the two-month Tour de Redmond challenge, Bernhard logged almost 600 miles of bike commuting.

It wasn’t long before Bernhard knew he was hooked.

“Bicycling is all the things I love about running – the physical challenge, seeing things you otherwise might not see – but without the impact. Now in my mid-30s I’m starting to feel the pain of getting old, but bicycling is low impact and more sustainable,” he said. “Plus, every time you ride, you burn off stress and I’m a happier person both at home and at work. I’m still on the sunrise of my biking career but I look forward to broadening my horizon.”

Bernhard’s enthusiasm about bicycling is contagious, and he’s been making many friends on the road.

“Bicycling is a great conversation starter. Being vocal about bicycling is a good way to find riding partners, share tips and routes and all the other cool things cycling has to offer,” he said. “In general, people who do sports, and anyone who doesn’t want to sit in a car all day, are cool people.”

His advice to people new to commuting on bikes is to stick with it.

“The first few days of commuting are the hardest. It seems logistically hard or impossible but you just have to get over that hump,” Bernhard said. “That and the calluses on your butt.”

Know a cyclist who deserves some special recognition? Nominate them for cyclist of the month! Send your ideas to Anne-Marije Rook at amrook@cascadebicycleclub.org.

Posted in Commuting, Cyclist of the Month, Profiles | 1 Comment »

“The biggest highlight for me is being able to just go out on a ride today and seeing a helmet on probably 98 percent of the people’s heads”

Monday, September 10th, 2012 by

Cyclist of the month: JOHN PADGETT
Age: 42
Wheels: A Pegoretti named “The Italian Job,” a tandem named “Driving Miss Daisy,” and a mountain bike named “Black Beauty.”
Occupation: Senior District Executive at Boy Scouts of America, Chief Seattle Council

John Padgett and his bike, "The Italian Job"

John Padgett’s earliest biking memory is of going into the garage to get his dad’s tools to take the training wheels off his bike himself. He later remembers terrorizing the neighborhood on a green bicycle that was styled after a motocross motorcycle.

“I’m surprised I turned out as well as I did,” he joked, as we rode along the Ship Canal on the Burke-Gilman Trail one sunny afternoon.

For a large part, the Boy Scouts are to thank for his outcome and his lifelong dedication to community service. Padgett joined the Boy Scouts of America when he was 11 years old, and the Scouts also got him into biking.

“I was probably 12 or 13 years old when I started on the bicycling merit badge and became more serious about my riding,” Padgett said, explaining that to earn the bicycling merit badge, he had to learn how to fix a flat, use appropriate hand signals, oil a chain, ride five 25-mile rides, and complete one 50-mile bike ride during which he had to showcase all the skills he had learned. “All these things sort of culminated into me getting involved in cycling, and I have been doing it ever since,” said the Eagle Scout.

Padgett went on to do some bike racing in college, tour the Canadian Rockies by bike, and participate in many recreational riding events. He even went on a bike-touring honeymoon with his wife, Rebekah.

When he moved to Seattle 15 years ago, he almost immediately got involved with Cascade Bicycle Club. What started with participation in events such as the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic and occasional volunteering, soon led to a 10-year-term on Cascade’s Education Advisory Committee.

“The involvement came in a couple of ways,” Padgett recalled. “I was trying to get a little more serious about my riding and participated in some of the events. Professionally, I was working for the Boy Scouts and for one event someone had borrowed the Cascade rodeo kit. I wound up having to return it and at the office I started talking to Julie.”

Julie Salathé, Cascade’s education director, informed Padgett about the Club’s education programs and touched on one of his biggest interests–bike helmets.

A bike racer in college, Padgett had hit his head on a curb during a race one day and woke up in the emergency room. “All I saw for a bit were stars and I thought, [helmets are] a pretty good deal,” Padgett said. “I learned that Cascade did low-cost helmet sales and put helmets on kids at Seattle Children’s Hospital and such. Julie sort of roped me in with that.”

Looking back on his time with Cascade, Padgett said a few highlights stand out.

“What’s interesting is that riding around here 15 years ago, you’d see maybe 5 to 10 percent of people wearing helmets. The biggest highlight for me is being able to just go out on a ride today and seeing a helmet on probably 98 percent of the people’s heads,” he said. “I’d like to think that some of it is because of the promotion that we have done.”

Another highlight for Padgett was getting the Basics of Bicycling off the ground. The Group Health Basics of Bicycling is an elementary school physical education curriculum for third to fifth-grade students in the Seattle, Lake Washington, Highline and Edmonds school districts. The goal of the programs is to teach kids to bike while also teaching them about safety and the rules of the road.

“There was no program in place when I started at Cascade,” said Padgett. “The idea floated around in meetings, we did some research, got the money from Group Health, and started on the curriculum. Just seeing it come to life is a big highlight.”

After serving on the Cascade Education Advisory Committee for more than a decade, he has decided to move on and focus on some passions that have been sitting on the back burner.

“One of the things that has been a lifelong passion of mine is sailing,” he said. “I joined the Renton Sailing Club, a 501(c)(3) that focuses on education, partners with Renton Parks, and does sailing lesson to promote the sport. I get to go out sailing and sharpen my skills and help other people, too.”

But when he’s not on a sailboat, Padgett will still be pedaling around–be it on his way to work or in the mountains–and maybe he’ll pick up a Cascade volunteer shift or two.

Know a cyclist who deserves some special recognition? Nominate them for cyclist of the month! Send your ideas to Anne-Marjie Rook at amrook@cascadebicycleclub.org. 

Posted in Cyclist of the Month, Helmets, Profiles | 7 Comments »

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