Archive for the ‘Cyclist of the Month’ Category

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“Everybody has a cause, and I’m going to get behind others’ causes.”

Monday, July 2nd, 2012 by

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

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Cyclist of the Month: TOM GIBBS
Age: 35
Wheels: 2003 Giant OCR3 road bike
Occupation: Manager, AT&T Mobility Network Reliability Center

About this photo, taken at the Bike Month Awards Party on June 7, Tom says, “From left to right you have Savannah (8 years old), Meredith (my amazing wife), my son Ben (5 years old), and our newest baby girl Vivienne (who is almost 3 months old). And then that really-lucky-to-have-such-a-wonderful-family guy on the far right is me."

If you had told Tom Gibbs six months ago that he would be standing onstage at this year’s Bike Month Awards and Recognition Celebration as the 2012 Group Health Commute Challenge Captain of the Year, he probably wouldn’t have believed you. After all, he’s so new to bike commuting that he doesn’t yet own a set of fenders.

Tom’s story begins several years back – on Valentine’s Day in 2004, to be exact. He was enjoying a celebratory dinner with his wife when he lost motor control of one of his arms. He made an appointment with a chiropractor, thinking he’d a pinched nerve in his back. But his symptoms only got worse. An MRI and spinal tap soon confirmed his fear: Tom had multiple sclerosis.

Grappling his diagnosis, Tom decided to ride the MS 150, a two-day, 150-mile fundraising ride put on by the Multiple Sclerosis Society. “I had no experience with that sort of thing, but I bought a bike, trained and raised a lot of money,” he says.

After the ride, he gave up bicycling for awhile. “The problem with me is I have a ‘been there, done that’ mentality. I proved to myself that I could do it, and my bike collected dust for a few years,” he says.

Then, on the day after Christmas last year, Tom relapsed again. He ended up in the hospital for three days getting steroid injections. “Having that happen instilled in me that I need to be proactive about my health,” he says.

During his annual physical shortly thereafter, his doctor told him that he needed to get more exercise. “I spend 10 hours a day sitting in a chair at work, and I go home to three kids. I don’t have time for the gym. I asked him, ‘When do I exercise?’”

“The doctor suggested that I try biking to work, and everything clicked,” he says. “It was a pivotal moment.”

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Posted in Bike Month, Commuting, Cyclist of the Month, Profiles | 2 Comments »

“You can ride at a brisk pace and still do wacky stuff.”

Thursday, June 14th, 2012 by

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

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Cyclist of the Month: JENNY ANDERSON
Age: 39
Wheels: 20-year-old Bianchi touring bike; Specialized carbon-fiber road bike
Occupation: VP, Instructor at Union Bank

When Jenny Anderson arrived at Log Boom Park in mid-May to lead that morning’s Cascade Daily Ride, one of her regular riders was riding around the parking lot, looking lost. “Oh, Jenny!” he said when he spotted her. “I didn’t recognize you. You’re not wearing your striped socks.”

Jenny laughs, “I didn’t know that was something people recognized me for. I just wear them.”

Jenny sticks out among Cascade’s clan of Ride Leaders in other ways, too. For one thing, she rides an “old dinosaur bike.” A few months back, at the cajoling of fellow Ride Leader Scott Boggs, she invested in a fancy new bike with a carbon-fiber frame.

“He asked, ‘How much does your bike weigh?’ I had no idea,” she says. “I weighed it with all my stuff on it, and it was 43 pounds! That’s ridiculous. His is 17 pounds.”

“I thought the right bike would make me go fast,” she adds. “It doesn’t. I’m still the last person on the hills.”

She says it’s her conditioning, but her overflowing rack trunk probably doesn’t help. “I carry fifty Band-Aids, two pairs of cleat covers, two bike pumps, two multi-tools and one piece of chain, since apparently I might need one if my chain breaks. But I have no idea how to fix that.”

Efficiency isn’t Jenny’s top priority. Instead, she focuses on fun. On her first ride of spring, she had each of the riders sign the waiver in a different “spring color” of ink. On April Fool’s Day, they all signed upside-down. “I never break the rules. I just have fun with them,” she says.

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Posted in Cascade Training Series, Cyclist of the Month, Daily Rides | No Comments »

“Bike to School Day is our favorite holiday.”

Friday, May 11th, 2012 by

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

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Cyclists of the Month: CLINT, LESLIE, BERKELEY AND EMMIE LOPER 
Ages: 50, 49, 13 & 10
Occupations: River Engineer, King County; Assistant Athletic Director, Bush School; student, Eckstein Middle School; student, Bryant Elementary
Wheels: Lots of ‘em

From left to right, Clint, Berkeley, Leslie and Emmie Loper

“Bike to School Day is our favorite holiday,” Clint Loper tells me with a chuckle. “It’s better than Christmas.”

And I believe him. The evidence is everywhere. There’s a bike rack positioned prominently on their front lawn. As we talk, he and his wife, Leslie, pull out bikes and bike paraphernalia – ramps, rumble strips, A-boards – that they use for events at the kids’ schools. On the day that I meet her, Berkeley Loper, a seventh grader, is wearing a Bike to Work Day t-shirt from 2011.

“When it gets dirty, she puts on her other one. Or she wears it anyway,” Leslie tells me. Berkeley makes no comment, but disappears into the garage, emerging later with a tandem in tow. Emmie, her little sister, rides in circles around the yard.

The Lopers’ crusade started on Berkeley’s first day of kindergarten at Bryant Elementary. The school was less than a mile from their house, so they arrived on foot. “I remember seeing the line of cars,” Clint tells me. “It was total traffic mayhem. I remember being distraught, thinking, ‘90 percent of these people live within a mile of the school. None of them need to drive.’”

He continues, “I thought, ‘This isn’t the school I want my kids to go to. Living this way doesn’t fit with our broader cultural goals.’” So he and Leslie set out to change things.

They started with their neighbors and friends, organizing people to walk and bike together. Then they volunteered one Friday morning to bring donuts for kids who showed up on bikes, and their efforts grew from there.

“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Clint says. “We winged it for Bike to School Day in 2006. We got people to volunteer to do maintenance and bring treats.”Six years later, 50 to 60 kids – 10 percent of the student body – park their bikes outside the school on a typical spring day.

What’s the key to their success? Energy, enthusiasm and fun. They have grant money, which they spend on prizes and donuts. More importantly, they have the “bike fairy,” their very own Bike to School mascot.

Leslie Loper as the Bike Fairy

The bike fairy has mysterious origins. According to Leslie, it’s the brainchild of Ellen Aagard, a dedicated community volunteer and biking mom who’s on the board of Cascade’s Education Foundation. “She got the costume somewhere and presented it to me,” she says.

Leslie took it from there. “Laurelhurst has a bike fairy, too, but they have rotating fairies,” she tells me. “I’m the steady fairy. One time I had to go away, and you were the Bike Wiz,” she says, with a nod to her husband.

Every Friday during May, Leslie bikes around the border of the school looking for kids on bikes. When she finds them, she taps them with her wand and awards them with prizes. “I love being the bike fairy,” she says.

“This is how we volunteer,” she continues. “We don’t do an auction or anything else. This is just what we do. And we invented it, six years ago.”

So, how’s the school taking it? “We’ve worn them down,” Clint tells me. In the early years, parents questioned whether it was safe enough for kids to ride to school, and they had to push the school to put in bike racks. But the kids love it, and no one can argue with that.

Indeed, everyone seems to be coming around. In January, SDOT and the Seattle School District presented Bryant with the First Annual Golden Shoe award in recognition of the school’s success in shifting its students to walking and biking. The school board also integrated walking and biking into its transportation services plan – thanks, in part, to testimony from Clint.

Clint and Leslie have big plans for the coming year. They’re scheduling more “donut days” – on which they meet students at Top Pot before school and ride in together. They’re also reaching out to other schools, including Eckstein Middle School, where Berkeley is a student, and they launched a website to help people at other schools share ideas.

But more than any of their other successes, it’s their daughters that impress me. Berkley has ridden to school every day since first grade. These days, she meets two of her friends at a street corner before school and rides in with them. Emmie, who’s just ten, rides home from Bryant by herself.

“Mom, I’m going to bike Emmie to dance,” Berkeley calls from the captains’ seat of the tandem.

As the girls set off on the mile-long trip, their mom tells me, “Sometimes I ask Berkeley if she wants a ride, but she’ll never take it. Emmie will, sometimes.”

“Yeah, she drives to dance, even in the sun,” Berkeley says.

 

Posted in Bike Month, Cyclist of the Month, Kids on bikes | 1 Comment »

“I’ve found salvation on the seat of a bike.”

Monday, April 9th, 2012 by

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

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Cyclist of the Month: KEITH BOARD
Age: 49
Occupation: Chief Editor, NW Cable News
Wheels: Bianchi Coast to Coast bicycle; Nimbus commuter unicycle

Keith Board has ridden a unicycle since 1974. But as it turns out, his story begins in 2006, on two wheels, not one.

The first time Keith pedaled the two miles between King Street Station and King 5’s offices on Dexter St., where he worked, he wasn’t sure he would make it. “Sweat was pouring off of me,” he said. “I wanted to vomit. I thought, ‘I’m only 43 years old. I’ve got to fix this.’”

He had been given an Orca pass by his workplace to commute by train and bus from his home in Buckley, Wash., but it was slow and inconvenient. Then, on Feb. 22, 2006, the man sitting next to him on the bus wet himself.

It was the final straw. “I told my wife, ‘I’m done with the bus.’” From there, it was a numbers game. Driving to work would cost the family $18 per day. He weighed 255 pounds. “I bought a bike for $45, and my life changed dramatically,” he said.

Within months, he had lost 15 pounds. Seeing Keith’s transformation, his wife decided to join him. “I told her, ‘You’re going to have to catch up.’”

The first bike ride they went on together was only five miles long, and her experience was similar to what his had been: she lay on the couch recovering for hours afterward.

Slowly but surely, they increased their mileage – and a year after they started riding together, in 2007, they pedaled all 206 miles of the Group Health STP. “Riding together helped us solve family problems,” he told me. “I also lost 75 pounds.”

He added, jovially, “I’ve learned not to say how much my wife has lost. So let’s just say that she lost weight, too.”

Cascade rides have been at the center of their journey together. Keith also rode Chilly Hilly and High Pass Challenge in 2007. “That first HPC was miserable,” he said. But he finished in seven hours and 57 minutes – just in time to receive a gold medal. “They might as well have handed me treasure from King Tut,” he said.

In 2008, he rode HPC with his youngest son, Kasey, who was just 13 years old at the time. In 2009, he and his older son, Jake, rode the STP in one day, on Jake’s 17th birthday.

As a family, they’ve embraced bicycling for transportation as well as recreation. “We’re like born-again Christians,” he said. “We’ve had this life-changing experience, and we’re thinking, ‘How could we have missed out on this for so long?’”

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Posted in Commuting, Cyclist of the Month, Profiles | 4 Comments »

“I like seeing what I’m about to run over.”

Monday, March 12th, 2012 by

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

Nominate a Cyclist of the Month!

Cyclist of the Month: JOHN WELLER
Age: 65
Wheels: Cannondale Synapse
Occupation: Retired (“Every day is Saturday.”)

John Weller began his bicycling career during the summer of ’97, on three-speed Raleigh from ’73. It was pure happenstance. “The gym was closed for a week,” he said. “I couldn’t run anymore because it hurt. I told my son, ‘Let’s go ride on the Burke.’”

A habit was born. From his start on the Burke-Gilman Trail, he became a regular bike commuter. And instead of parking his bicycle when he arrived at work, he pedaled it on the range roads of his “60,000-acre office.”

John was a range officer for the military, and he bicycled to visit his “customers” – military units training for maneuvers and artillery firing. “There I was, working in an environmentally destructive field, and my carbon footprint was a size 11,” he told me, delivering the joke with such austerity that I didn’t catch on for several seconds.

I wondered whether showing up on a bicycle might undercut his authority among gun-wielding military types. Instead, his bicycle – combined with his quick wit, hardened demeanor and a whole host of ribbons and buttons – had the opposite effect.

“The army is a physical fitness culture,” he told me. “My going to see the officers and sergeants by bike got better reviews than driving.”

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