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Road Biking Booms in Bay Area; Lance Doesn't Get Credit

Posted on: Thursday, 3 November 2005, 06:00 CST

By Douglas Fischer, STAFF WRITER

Lance Armstrong is in yellow, the Tour de France is in the Pyrenees, and road biking is back in the Bay Area.

In other words, all is well in the cycling world.

After a decade that saw mountain bikes nearly eclipse road bikes as the nation's -- and region's -- two-wheeled locomotion of choice, interest in those nimble, thin-wheeled flashy road bikes is surging.

Granted, some of the Lycra-clad weekend warriors atop those contraptions might need a day or two to make it up some of the Tour's tougher climbs. But hey, they're having fun. And there's no bettersport offering guys with beer bellies a chance at an aerobic workout.

Tempting as it may be to credit Armstong's success for this surge, observers and participants in the local bicycle scene think otherwise. Interest, they predict, will last long after the Texan takes his expected seventh straight Tour victory and rides into retirement this weekend.

"Cycling as a sport is really lifelong," said Theo St. Pierre, a Berkeley rider touring the East Bay hills Saturday morning. "Once you get into it, you're definitely in it for a while.

"It's not so much of a fad sport because it's too painful."

California, and the Bay Area in particular, has long been a cradle for bicycling trends. The nation's oldest continuously held bicycle road race, for instance, is the Berkeley Hills Road Race, established in 1957.

In the 1970s, a group of Marin County yahoos stripped down some old clunkers, added puffy balloon tires and took off down the county's fire roads. It was the birth of mountain biking.

"All trends in bicycle activity over the last 50 years have had their seeding in the Bay Area," said Peter Rich.

He should know. Since 1962, Rich has sold bikes from his Berkeley shop, Velosport. He's been riding the region's hills since the 1950s.

Back then, he added, "I don't think there were 50 people who owned road bikes, and they almost all spoke with accents."

And when he opened his shop, perhaps 2 percent of all riders were women, he said. Today they account for 60 percent of his sales.

The renewed interest in road biking comes from many sources, say those who ride bikes and those who sell them. Nobody interviewed cited the Tour de France, which, after a final day in the mountains Tuesday, races north into Paris for Sunday's finishing stage.

Instead, they cite the need to exercise while preserving aging knees that can't take the pounding from jogging. Or back roads that, amazingly for the region, remain car-free even today. Or a boyfriend who rode. Or the camaraderie. Or the speed.

"It's rhythmic and smooth," said Lori Brown of Oakland, who started mountain biking with her future husband six years ago and made the jump to road riding after getting injured jogging last year. "I find it really relaxing."

"We're all in our middle-40s and we can't run as much," added Becky McVittie, taking a breather with some friends at Grizzly Peak Boulevard in the Oakland hills Saturday. "It's social, it's fun, and we motivate each other.

Grant Petersen, owner and founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works in Walnut Creek, would add another reason: the scenery. Nobody in the country has a better place for riding than a Bay Area resident.

"From the (San Francisco) Bay to 70 miles south and 70 miles north and 35 miles inland, you could spend your life riding that and not want for anything more," he said. "It is as good as it gets. It's hilly, it's not that hot, there are no mosquitoes, there's no humidity.

"There can't be a better place in the country."

Contact Douglas Fischer at

dfischer@angnewspapers.com.

Source: Oakland Tribune

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