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The Peculiar Power of The Bike

By Joe Kurmaskie

There’s a revolutionary living under your roof.

It doesn’t chant slogans or engage in armed resistance, but it’s a power to be reckoned with all the same. It bunks down in the garage or waits patiently by the door. To some it’s disguised as a child’s toy, a deceptively simple device for recreating on the weekends. In truth, your bicycle is lightning in a top tube, a rebel with a cause just waiting to change your life. It’s Gandhi, Malcolm X and The Clash piled on and rolling down the road on some mad-capped tandem for change. Hell, it’s Teddy Roosevelt and all of his rough damn riders running roughshod over sloth and sedentary living.

It’s a symphony one day and an all night rave the next. Pedal a bike and you’ll have all the proof you need of a balanced universe. Stronger than St. John’s Wart, Prozac, and Viagra combined, the bicycle has saved drunks and junkies and quietly discontented accountants alike. It’s defibrillated couch potatoes awake and away from the mushy twilight of the TV’s glow. It has turned back time for retirees who thought their day was done. Don’t take my word for it, though....

David Frost

Love is tricky. That’s why people are always looking for something to help make the connection. David Frost swears by his bicycles, not only as matchmaker, but as the glue that bonds a happy marriage. From their first conversation in a downpour during a cross-state ride to their first date, a lively visit to REI’s flagship store in Seattle to check out the enormous bike department, David and Mary embody the maxim — a couple that rolls together, holds together. The honeymoon? A bike adventure in France. And how do these athletic lovebirds get quality time together between raising children and working for a buck?

Frost explains, “On many days Mary rides down to my office and we commute home together. We’ve had some of our best talks and shared moments taking the long way home. The bicycle has also helped them deal with the sickness clause in their wedding vows. “During Mary’s breast cancer therapy our bike rides made the difference physically and for her emotional outlook.” Only weeks after the last treatment, David, Mary, and the kids took a family bike vacation on the San Juan Islands. “It was deeply satisfying to watch our children learn about the wonderful freedom and independence a bike can provide.”

Marc Alton

Sometimes less really is more. If Marc Alton’s life were a screenplay, the pivotal scene would have to be when this overweight, drunken, couch potato catches sight of the police cruisers flashing their lights in his rearview. By the time he sobered up, Marc had no driver’s license. “I really felt this was the worse thing that could have happened in my life. If I’d been clear in my head and able to see beyond my next highball I would have realized I was drinking myself to death,” he says. For the first time in 15 years, Marc found himself pedaling a bike. The seven miles to work was a wakeup call. He couldn’t make it without huffing and resting over the handlebars.

“Now I ride about 8,000 miles a year and the last century I did without leaving my clips once.” Marc traded in glasses of alcohol for water bottles of Powerade and a TV remote control for a cyclocomputer. “AA helped too, but my bike ... it endures. Many times while on a ride, whether down a lonely country road or deep in the woods, I reflect upon just how much of my life I owe to my bike.” Less really is more.

Kelly Iniguez

Bag all those store bought remedies, pocket the throat lozenges and leave your antibiotics inside their little hard-to-open containers. School bus driver and avid cyclist, Kelly Iniguez, has a novel answer to the rising cost of health care.

“I drive a load of coughing, sniffling school children in a tight metal container twice a day and I haven’t been sick in years. It’s my daily bike commute.

Kelly’s roundabout commute takes 45 minutes with snow tires on, and 30 minutes without, one way. By the time she finishes, then tacks on errands, Kelly has a minimum of 15 miles in the saddle. Call it stress relief, or chalk it up to the fresh air, during the height of flu season Kelly delivers precious cargo without even a tissue in her hand. “I love it, the morning ride wakes me up, and on the commute home I unwind. Maybe I’ll use my sick day pay to get another bike.”

Ben Royce

“She wasn’t coming back and neither was the car. I held my three small boys (then one, three, and five) and wondered how things were going to turn out. So much happens inside when you’re the one left behind — resentment, anger, a hopelessness that threatens to freeze you in place. I had to quit my job to stay home and take care of the kids. I had just lost my mom when my wife left, then my best friend was killed. This could have been the beginning of a very long downward spiral, but I never gave up on school or used our lack of a car as an excuse for sitting around the house and feeling bad.

Without even realizing it I became a cyclist, and took my boys with me. My toddler rode in the baby seat, with the five-year-old leading the way from my voice commands, and the three-year-old following behind him. Cycling took the stress away from being a parent. We went from pedaling on sidewalks to cycling the roads, logging 30 miles a day and, without pushing it, my boys became my friends. We’ve spent many hours in quiet conversation on one road or another, and now my step-sons have found the joys of cycling as well. My dream? Ride cross-country from San Francisco to New York with them as grown men. For now we’re planning a spin from Tallahassee to Gainesville, Florida, to help raise money for The Children’s Miracle Network. Where I once thought I only had mouths to feed, the bike turned us into a family that feeds my soul.”

Matt Siegel

As a teenager in downtown Chicago, Matt was so sure he would go to medical school that when doubt crept in during a pre-med course load at Amherst, it rocked his world. His dad was a successful doctor, and more importantly, a true healer, so the expectations were in place, if not overt pressure. But to do it right one had to take it as a calling, and the last thing Matt wanted to do was pose inside someone else’s career.

With a liberal arts degree in hand he took to the world for answers. A car was too harsh and distant for a real vision quest. And his feet felt too familiar. The bike rang true. So much so that he made it all the way around New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia finally getting off in Indonesia. All those miles in the saddle cleared his mind and focused his future back on medicine. He’d come full circle, but this time it was on his own terms.

There are more stories just waiting behind garage doors and in basements all over the world. So go ahead, get on your bike and start a revolution.

You Might Be A Cyclist if… is Joe Kurmaskie’s latest book — a collection of inspiring and humorous affirmations that every cyclist will recognize themselves through. The stories above are part of a Cadence Press project called Soul Rides. If you have an inspiring story about how the bike changed your life, contact Joe at mtcowboy@teleport.com