THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606290078
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY REBECCA MYERS CUTCHINS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 172 lines
WHEN RANDY SMITH gave up jogging for bicycling, he swore he would never wear those tight Lycra shorts popular with most cyclists.
So Smith wore a pair of sweat pants on his first long-distance bike trip.
He got so chafed he couldn't walk afterward.
In the 10 years since, Smith has learned to accept spandex as part of the necessary gear of a serious bicyclist, along with a good helmet and a decent racing bike.
So, too, do the cyclists who call themselves the Early Sunday Morning Riders, bicycle enthusiasts who meet on Sunday mornings for a fast-paced, 30-mile ride from Churchland to Chuckatuck and back.
For the past eight years or so, five to 25 cyclists have converged on the parking lot of Scat Bike Shop for the rides that leave at 7 a.m. in the summer and 8 a.m. in the spring and fall.
``Most of us all have families and other things to do, so that's one of the advantages of doing it early on Sunday mornings,'' said Smith, a Churchland attorney. ``We can go out and be back by 10 or 11 so we've still got the whole day to do things with the family.''
Although the same riders usually show up week after week, visitors are always welcome.
Last Sunday, for example, at least one of the nine cyclists was a newcomer. Music teacher Jim Vernon, on vacation from Oklahoma, decided to join the group after learning about them last summer while visiting relatives in Western Branch.
Actually, the more cyclists, the easier the ride, according to Smith. That's because the riders situate themselves directly behind one another in what is called a pace line. In such a formation, cyclists at the front cut through the resistance of the wind, which allows those in the back to ride more freely. But because these cyclists take turns riding in the lead, the ``free ride'' is short-lived.
``When you become a cyclist, you check the Weather Channel every day before you go on a ride, and if the winds are over 10 miles per hour, you know you're going to be working hard,'' said Carole Taylor, president of the 490-member Tidewater Bicycle Association.
Though she is not part of the Early Sunday Morning Riders, Taylor is an avid cyclist who recently rode from her Virginia Beach home to Ocracoke.
``We don't have many hills here, so most people think it's pretty easy riding,'' she said, ``but we have open lands, like down in Chesapeake and in Pungo, and when there's wind, it brushes across the highway, and it's harder riding.''
In its infancy, the Early Sunday Morning Riders would cover about 25 miles at a leisurely 15 miles an hour. These days, they maintain an average speed of about 25 mph and travel 30 to 50 miles round trip.
``Just coming out my first time, I was surprised at how well I could ride with the guys,'' said Harold Ridgell, 45, who has been with the group since it began about eight years ago. ``And in riding with more people, triathletes and people like that, the pace just got faster and faster.''
Until he became an avid cyclist, Ridgell had been a motorcycle enthusiast.
``My wife didn't like that, so I graduated to bicycles from motorcycles,'' he said with a laugh.
A marine machinist at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Ridgell usually commutes to and from work by bike.
Though it's only 11 miles from his Point Elizabeth home to the Portsmouth shipyard, to increase his training miles Ridgell takes a longer route returning home. He shoots for a 28-mile round trip.
When he's working at the naval base in Norfolk, Ridgell tries to cycle at least two evenings a week in addition to the Sunday ride that takes him from Churchland, through Western Branch and Pughsville to Chuckatuck and back.
Ridgell rides each Sunday, he said, because he enjoys being with a group of people who have similar interests.
``It's so exhilarating when everybody's working in tandem, everybody's thinking the same, and everybody takes their turns to pull,'' he said. ``It's cohesive and it's communicative.
``Once you know each other well, everything works real smoothly. It's just a thing of beauty. I don't know how else to explain it.''
Smith says it's the challenge of the ride that keeps him coming back week after week. Like Ridgell, Smith has been riding with the club almost since its inception.
``You get the better riders out there, and you feel a little better yourself if you can keep up with them,'' he said. ``So there's that motivation to go out and try to finish with some of the faster riders and not get dropped, to make it back in with them.''
A former runner, Smith, 41, switched to cycling because it was easier on his knees. In addition to his Sunday morning ride, he cycles five other mornings a week, pedaling about 25 miles before leaving for the law office only minutes from his home. Smith does not, however, use his bike to commute to and from work.
``I'm only two miles away from home, so it's not that practical,'' he said. ``But I've thought about how it could be fun to have a job that's farther away.''
Taylor attributes the popularity of cycling to three main factors:
``It's a healthy, low-impact, safe exercise; it's relatively inexpensive; and it's recreational.''
As president of the Tidewater Bicycle Association, Taylor works closely with other biking clubs in the state and with the Virginia Department of Transportation to lobby for bicycle lanes and paths on roads that are being built.
A kindergarten teacher at Brighton Elementary School, Taylor also is very involved in bicycle safety programs.
``We have some problems with motorists, but it's usually out of their own fear,'' she said. ``Some automobile drivers, when they see bicyclists, they're afraid they're going to hit them.
``Then there are others who don't think bicyclists belong on the road, but they do have the right to be on the road in the line of traffic.''
In the nine years that Barbara Sturgis has been cycling - twice logging more than 10,000 miles in a single year - she has been lucky enough to have had only one close call with a motorist.
``One morning, I was cycling in to work and a man ran a stop sign,'' said Sturgis, an X-ray technician at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard who lives near MidCity Shopping Center. ``He didn't even see me ... but I saw him coming, and I kind of figured he was going to run that stop sign, so I was already on my brakes when he was almost in front of me.''
For the most part, Sturgis thinks motorists are pretty courteous, but she conceded that the majority of her riding has been in the country.
``Whenever I would plan a trip, it would be on back country roads because I know they're safer,'' she said. ``Plus, I enjoy riding where there's not a lot of traffic.''
Sturgis, 48, whose bicycling friends probably remember her best as Barbara Cassidy, cut back on her cycling about two years ago after getting married again. And because she tied the knot with a sailboat enthusiast, Sturgis now spends most of her time on the 31-foot sailboat she and her husband, Tommy, have docked at Portsmouth Boating Center.
When Sturgis isn't sailing, she's taking navigation and safe-sailing courses with the U.S. Coast Guard, she said. But she has not given up on cycling completely. She still rides 10 miles to and from work each day, keeps two fold-up bicycles on the sailboat and owns a bicycle built for two.
Before meeting her second husband, Sturgis rode weekly with the Sunday Morning Riders and for many years was the only female among them.
The early morning ride appealed to Sturgis, she said, because it allowed her to ``get home in time to go to church.'' But she also learned a great deal about riding fast and drafting behind much stronger cyclists.
``Those guys were serious,'' she said. ``Most of them were racers ...
``And, of course, my tongue was hanging out by the time I got back, but after about the second summer with them, I could keep up.''
Sturgis went from 1,000 miles her first year of biking to 10,000 miles four years later. She was drawn to cycling, she says, because it served as an escape from a troubled first marriage and it was something she didn't need a partner to do.
Today, Sturgis is content tooling around the neighborhood with her new husband on their tandem bike.
``That's the type of riding we do now,'' she said.
Between them, Sturgis and her husband have four adult children and four grandchildren. And because all four grandkids live within a few miles, the couple has even bought a cart to pull behind their tandem for the kids.
``So we're still probably doing about 10 or 15 miles a day,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
Bicycle enthusiasts, at left, start out early in the morning from
Churchland on their way to Chuckatuck - a ride that will bring them
back home to their churches and families by about 10:30 a.m.
Harold Ridgell has been with the group since it began eight years
ago. Ridgell usually commutes to and from work at the Norfolk Naval
Shipyard by bike.
Occasional Sunday rider Barbara Sturgis keeps a fold-up bicycle on
the sailboat she and her husband, Tommy, own. They also have tandem
bike and log 10 to 15 miles per day, she says.
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HOW TO GET INVOLVED
For more information about the Early Sunday Morning Riders, call
Scat Bike Shop at 483-2818. For details about upcoming rides
sponsored by Tidewater Bicycle Association, call 721-0268.
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ON THE COVER
In the photo on the cover, Portsmouth cyclists ride through the
Pughsville area on the Chesapeake-Suffolk line on their weekly trek.
The picture was taken by staff photographer Mark Mitchell. by CNB