Biking diehards ride to work or play, regardless of weather

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By JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star

Since 1989, Matt Wills and his wife, Karen, have made bicycles — not cars, SUVs or minivans — their vehicle of choice.

They were in college at the time, dating and sharing an apartment with two other friends. Instead of driving to campus, where parking can be difficult to find, they and their roommates opted for two wheels.

“Driving didn’t make sense,” Wills said.

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Matt Wills rides his bike on the Lincoln bike trail while taking his kids to the dentist near 40th Street and Old Cheney Road. Wills and his wife commute on most days, taking turns transporting their two kids to day care, swim lessons and back home. (Michael Paulsen)

Matt Wills rides his bike on the Lincoln bike trail while taking his kids to the dentist near 40th Street and Old Cheney Road. Wills and his wife commute on most days, taking turns transporting their two kids to day care, swim lessons and back home. (Michael Paulsen)

Bicycles did.

And they still do.

Today, Matt, a 37-year-old architect, and Karen, a 37-year-old assistant student involvement director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, pedal virtually everywhere.

They commute to work. They use their bikes to run errands. They take turns transporting their two children, ages 6 and 3, to and from day care, swimming and ballet lessons.

Wills rides his bicycle year-round, regardless of the weather. He grows a beard in the winter to protect his face from the harsh Nebraska winds.

“When it snows 4 to 6 inches, it can be difficult,” he said. “Once last year it was too deep, so I ran to work with my backpack. I like running.”

People tell Wills they think he’s “insane.”

“Most of them view bikes as toys,” Wills said. “But to me, they’re about transportation and recreation.”

He’s not alone.

Bicycles are gaining in popularity, even more so recently thanks to record fuel prices.

Fred Clements, president of the National Bicycle Dealers Association, estimates 18 million to 20 million bikes will be sold this year, a number comparable to the past few years.

But the trend he’s seeing is more people, like the Willses, buying bikes for commuting and utility use.

“It’s a bit of a change from the past, when (bikes were sold) for recreation or fitness,” he said. “But because of gas prices, people are looking for options for short trips.”

Locally, commuter bikes also are hot, as are fitness and hybrid bikes, said Brent “Butch” Johnson, a sales associate at Cycle Works.

“A lot of it is due to fuel and energy prices,” he said.

Cycle Works also is seeing increased sales of accessories such as racks, bags, lights and more. Many more customers are bringing in their old bikes for tune ups, new tires and tubes and such.

“What we’re hearing, what people are talking about, is they want to commute more,” Johnson said.

Recreational biking remains big as well. RAGBRAI, the Des Moines Register’s annual ride across Iowa, begins its 36th tour today with an expected 10,000 riders covering the 472-mile course in seven days. The ride is the longest, largest and oldest cycling tour in the world.

In Nebraska, BRAN (Bike Ride Across Nebraska) concluded its 28th ride in June, having no trouble again reaching its 600-rider capacity.  The Tour de Nebraska wrapped up its 21st ride two weeks later. It, too, was at capacity, with 210 riders.

“This was the first year I had to mail some checks back,” said Susan Rodenburg, who organizes the Tour de Nebraska with her husband, Rich. “People really enjoy it. They truly like being out there on their own.”

Indeed, it’s hard to ignore cycling’s recent popularity surge.

Some, like the Willses, have made bicycles a lifestyle. Others, like 17-year-old Matt McClure, are returning to bikes after not having ridden them for a number of years.

And some, like couples Mary and Bob Torell of Lincoln and Alisa and Bruce Sandahl of Hastings, ride for the sheer enjoyment of it, pedaling in organized tours such as BRAN, Tour de Nebraska and RAGBRAI.

These are their stories.

The commuters

Matt Wills remembers that a co-worker once remarked, after seeing Wills’ kids climb into the bike trailer, how it looked similar to them getting in a car.

“They don’t know any different,” Wills said. “Sure, they will ask to ride in the car at times, but they know this is how we get around.”

Wills owns six bicycles — a commuter bike, a road bike, a vintage mountain bike and three mountain bikes he uses to race. Wife Karen has a commuter and a mountain bike.

“I like cars,” Wills said. “I’m even a bit of a gear head. I’m not anti-car. But I don’t want to rely on a car. I prefer to propel myself under my own power.”

Wills understands commuting isn’t for everybody. He doesn’t wear a suit to work, nor does his job require him to drive. He and his wife purchased a house near their jobs, the grocery store and the day care to allow for their cycling lifestyle.

And, no, they don’t pedal their children around in brutally cold weather. The cutoff, Wills said, is 32 degrees. That’s when Karen drives the car, a 1998 Subaru Forester. He continues to ride, however.

“Some people think I’m insane,” Wills said. “This is easy. This is not hard. I try to make my life not hard.”

Back in the saddle again

When Matt McClure was 10, he and his friends rode their bikes everywhere. A favorite trip was to Wal-Mart on North 27th Street from their homes in the Highlands.

McClure quit riding when he was 13. Three years later, he had his driver’s license. He didn’t need the bike for transportation anymore. He even sold it at a garage sale.

“I remember after I got my car my dad telling me I would drive it everywhere,” McClure said. “I told him I would ride or walk to my friends who were close by. He was right. I ended up driving my car everywhere.”

McClure, who soon turns 18, had a change of heart. He purchased a mountain bike last month because he and his girlfriend thought riding bicycles might be something they would enjoy doing together.

“I rode it once and thought, ‘This is fun,’” he said.

He took the next step. He rode it to Little King at 48th Street and Cornhusker Highway, where he works.

Now he’s given up driving a car entirely. The car was his mom’s, and he gave it back to her because he plans to buy his own.

Maybe.

“I ride as much as I can,” he said. “Every other night I try to do eight to 10 miles. I ride to work every day. I haven’t even looked into buying a new car yet.”

“My first ride to work was five and half miles … I was hurting a little bit,” he said. “But after a couple of weeks, it got pretty easy.”

This winter he begins classes at Southeast Community College. He plans to commute, weather permitting.

“Once I started riding to work I thought this was cool,” he said. “I’m getting good exercise, I’m saving on gas. I just started doing it every day.”

The tourists

Bob Torell proposed to his wife, Mary, on a warm January day as they cycled through Holmes Park.

At the wedding reception, their cake was topped with a miniature bike.

Bob, 58, recently completed his 14th Tour de Nebraska, which, this year, was a five-day, 300-mile ride in central Nebraska. It was Mary’s 13th.

Mary, 54, said she and her husband couldn’t imagine their lives without their bicycles.

“I’m after it for the health aspects,” she said. “I’ve gotten hooked on my bike. The freedom of it … It’s like being a kid again. You can go as fast or slow as you want.”

Like Wills and McClure, cycling has carried over to their everyday lives. Both Torells try to commute to work as much as possible. Bob is president of the University of Nebraska Credit Union. Mary works in the university’s agriculture department.

“It’s a great cardiovascular workout,” she said. “Plus, if you commute, you’re saving on gas, saving the environment, that sort of thing.”

Exercise is why Alisa Sandahl, 49, bought a bike. In her first job out of college, she taught family consumer science at a school in Campbell.

“We were talking about fitness and health, and I remember thinking, ‘Alisa, you’re such a hypocrite. You don’t do anything.’”

She drove to Kearney, purchased a bike and began training for her first RAGBRAI. That was in  1984. Since then, the elementary school counselor in Hastings has ridden in 10 of them.

This summer, she and her husband, 51-year-old Bruce, a Hastings firefighter, completed their ninth straight Tour de Nebraska and second consecutive BRAN. The couple also is on the committee for Hastings’ Kool-Aid Classic Bike Ride. Now in its eighth year, the ride features 30- and 60-mile routes.

“For me, it’s really more of a social thing than anything,” Bruce Sandahl said. “It’s like a family reunion when you go (on tours) every year. Beyond that, it’s really the fitness aspect of it, too. It’s the way I fool myself into exercising.”

Plus, nearly everybody can do it.

“The thing I find fascinating about cycling is the wide range of ages involved and the wide range of ability levels,” he said. “You don’t have to ride fast to enjoy. You ride at your own pace and make it whatever you want it to be.”

Reach Jeff Korbelik 473-7213 or at jkorbelik@journalstar.com.