The torch has been passed back and forth among the same generation of leaders, like the queen of spades in a round of hearts. At some point, I expect, we'll get together to discuss which of the new assisted living facilities to move into when our time comes. On weekends, we'll circle around the parking lot, expertly spinning our wheelchairs. We'll replay the videos of the club's Y2K holiday party, await the bookmobile's weekly visit to examine last month's issues of "Mature Cycling" and "Mellow Velo," and (of course) hold new elections for officers.

Yes, Lance Armstrong can now be seen on a box of Wheaties. But will it increase the cycling population? Or will breakfasters view cycling as an elite competitive activity, like ice skating--something to watch other people do on TV?

Many of us who for years have encouraged friends, family members, roommates, or colleagues to take up cycling have little to show for our efforts. Promotions such as B-BOPP and Bike to Work Day take on the flavor of tribal fast days, on which the populace gives up something for a few hours--food, cars--in nominal atonement for patterns of consumption one has no intention of renouncing.

In their paper "Bicycling Renaissance in North America? Recent trends and alternative policies to promote bicycling" (Transportation Research A, Sept/Nov 1999), John Pucher, Charles Komanoff and Paul Schimek identify a key suspect--the persistence of cultural attitudes:

"In general, where there are few bicyclists, cycling is considered abnormal, and this climate tends to be self-perpetuating."

Still, there's no time like the present to begin plotting one's big comeback. Here on Sunset Boulevard, one of the ideas we've been talking about is social rides.

A social ride is an easy ride no longer than 20 miles or so. The group stops for breakfast somewhere. The leader keeps the group together; it's not the ride for Jan and Jerry Hotdog to break away on their tandem moments after the starting gun and never be seen again.

When I had dinner with Art Ackerman recently, he explained the whole concept to me, drawing on his Florida Freewheelers experience. It's important to hold it same time, same place, on a monthly schedule, I think he said. Announce it and advertise it. Another trick: the ride leader can leave a message for the bike shop owner (at or near where the ride starts) about how many are coming. When the group comes back, everyone stops by the store for free bagels and sport drinks. The shop gets new customers, the newcomers get gear they need, the club gets new members. That's the way it's supposed to work.

The 20-mile limit is probably a good idea. On a 34-mile club ride I recently went on, a bagatelle for B- and C-riders despite a fierce headwind, a female newcomer someone had invited bonked miles before the end, making little effort to sustain standard public image protocols, although she had been described as fit and athletic. No doubt she was, but it was in other sports.

Those of us who have been cycling for a while lose sight of what a manifold set of skills and abilities we have acquired incrementally over many years. Just entering the spaceship equipment bays that bike shops have become can intimidate an inexperienced customer.

I remember MY first club ride – it could easily have been a daunting experience. I was criminally underdressed (even by my current standards), and I lacked fenders as well as most of the cycling world’s social graces. The best thing about the ride was that when I fell over, Walt didn’t run over me! Fortunately, the people I was riding with were really encouraging, and I stuck it out. In honor of Dwight, and in hopes of encouraging the same spirit of generosity and helpfulness that I encountered when I started riding, I’m making the following presidential fiat: For the month of April, each club member who (a) brings a friend, relative, or significant other to the short ride and (b) actually rides the short ride with them, no matter what, will be awarded "double miles" for their efforts. The purpose of this activity is more than just bringing people into contact with the club. I’m anticipating real benefits for you, the experienced rider, as well. Have a great month of cycling! The days are finally getting longer, the rain is a little warmer, and nice weather is just around the corner!

This is a bittersweet month. First I attended a meeting at OSU dealing with their master plan for transportation and parking. I had a chance to talk to John Cook before the meeting and he assumed me that the campus will be very bike friendly with only bikes and pedestrian traffic in the core campus. They are trying a shuttle right now and it will be adjusted as need arises. It looks like they are headed in the right direction. They also plan to build two parking structures to deal with the parking for staff and students. But not on the main campus. I hope to have a map of the future plans soon.

The bad news is the city found some endangered plants next to West Harrison St. ODOT is requiring them to go around the plants instead of moving them and this is going to cost another 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollars and take another year just to get the permits. They also don't have those dollars right now and it is not clear where they will come from. In the mean time they will complete the Circle Drive multi use path to Harrison and complete the bike lanes as far as the multipurpose path. This will still leave about 1/4 mile of very narrow road and no bike lane. I let them know that this is very important to all the bicyclist and pedestrians in the north part of the city that want to use the Bald Hill Park and want to use the OAK Creek access to McDonald forest. You can be sure they are aware of the interest and will be moving ahead on the realignment engineering and permits needed to get across Oak St.

Joe Monteleone gives us a chilling reminder from the field. He writes: I wanted to alert you all to an incident that happened last night (Thursday, February 17, 2000) on Fern Road, south of Philomath at about 5:32pm, just before the sun went down. I was riding a road bike southbound on Fern, about a 1/4 mile north of Llewellyn Road (about at the yard with the loud, aggressive, little black dog on the chain), when a Ford pickup heading northbound swerved over the center line at me and veered away within 2-3 ft of me. Another car heading southbound (a Toyota I think) had just passed me without incident and without infringing on the northbound lane, when as soon as the Toyota passed the northbound Ford Truck, he came over the line at me. I did NOTHING to encourage this behavior. I was wearing a bright yellow vest and jersey. He clearly saw me way ahead of time and committed to the act early.

The driver was a white male, age 17-25, short hair (blonde/dirty brown I think) with baseball hat. He had either one or two passengers. It happened very quickly - I wasn't able to get a license plate (trying to figure out if I needed to bail for the ditch). Here's the best I can do on the truck:

+Ford 3/4 Ton, standard cab, fleetside, longbed, I think a 4x4, glass packs for exhaust mufflers (loud) +No camper shell +I'm not sure it had a tailgate, but I can't say for sure that it didn't +sliding rear window with far left and right panes covered with either a one way mirrored sticker or with decals - Looked like it could have been a Budweiser label or a Confederate Flag type design - red in color. +early to mid 70's model Ford +Either all light blue or two tone with dark blue sides and top of cab

I locked eyes with the creep for what seemed like forever but was probably less than 5 seconds. He's a cold (bleep). Be careful if you encounter him or that truck. I believe he probably only wanted to scare me, but he committed really early to this act. He didn't care that the Toyota probably saw the whole thing in the rearview mirror. The Toyota didn't stop or double back to check on me, so he either didn't see it or didn't care.

If you see this Truck, beware. He's got something against bicycle riders.

REMINDER: This was very clearly an unprovoked attack. Joe was riding legally, safely, and responsibly. As a club, we DO NOT endorse cycling that is designed to irritate motorists, or put riders in unsafe situations. And, if you are the victim of a similar crime (yes, this is a crime!), by all means, report it to the authorities.

If you've ever been curious about the Race Across Oregon, but haven't quite made the leap to forming a team, please consider signing on as a crew member.

Crew requirements: loyal, brave, trustworthy, fun-loving, patient, level-headed, general understanding of cycling.

Pay: none. I cannot afford to pay you what you're worth. And if you're only worth what I can pay, I don't want you.

Benefits: all expenses-paid tour of our great state, at speeds approaching 20 mph (at times). Cool t-shirt. Insomnia. All the Pepsi you can drink. Did I mention the t-shirt?

Should you be interested in following some of the 240+ riders who are participating in the Odyssey 2000 adventure, following are websites of some of the riders who are posting travelogues. Some are daily and some are weekly.

This is the around-the-world bicycle trip organized by T.Kneeland & Assoc. of Seattle; they began the odyssey in the Rose Bowl parade and will finish there in 2001. Currently, they have cycled through all or parts of Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Argentina, and South Africa. They have a lot of interesting stories already!

http://www.odyssey2000.com/ - This is the official Odyssey2000 site.

http://www.rmisp.com/young/IndexO2k.htm - This is a school teacher from Idaho who writes what I think is the most interesting travelogue.

http://www.gtgtandems.com/moulds.html - A different perspective.

http://www.worldriders.com/world/photo.htm - From Portland, lots of pictures.

http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=02kring;list - A list of several riders sending messages.

1. Check chain to see amount of nasty crud present from winter riding.

2. Gather solvent, toothbrush, rivet extractor, etc.

3. Go into garage. Open door. Note sun streaming down outside after days of rain.

4. Go into house. Call a friend and meet for ride.

5. Go riding, enjoy the sun and clouds.

6. Stop at Main St. Bakery, have munch, visit with lycra-clad ladies who zoomed past you earlier.

7. Go back to bikes. Don helmet to protect you against hail now striking you and bike. Feel torrents of rain coming down. Explain to friend, who is new to bicycling, that this is much nicer than being at the office.

8. Bike back home through pouring rain and puddles.

9. Note how shiny chain is as sun breaks through the clouds again.

10. Back home, wipe water off now-clean chain and lubricate.

Having trouble remembering club meeting dates. Here’s a hint, for free. Take the ride calendar out of this newsletter and post it somewhere you will see it often. In my house it’s on a bulleting board. In yours it might be on the refrigerator.

Business conducted: Mark Newsome was unanimously elected as club treasurer. He is replacing Don Saleski, who resigned in January. Welcome Mark!

Program speaker: Pat Johnson came from the Humane Society, to give us hints on dealing with dogs.

The main message she gave regarding chasing/aggressive dogs was: (1) THROW DOG BISCUITS! (2) Stop (in her experience, most riders cannot outpace a determined larger dog, and many dogs stop chasing if you stop moving. (3) Put your bike between you and the dog. (4) Avoid eye contact. Watch the TAIL for signs of aggression - raised hackles, tail high (5) Fill a dog's mouth with something like a waterbottle, to jam it open. (6) If all else fails, and you are being attacked, protect your head and neck, and play dead.

Present: Alan Acock, Richard Burgess, Susan Christie, Lyle Dalton, Kim Fawcett, Rob Gandara, Martha Hankins, Sandy Kenny, Nancy Meitle, Mark Newsome, Joe Monteleone, John Morris, Walt Prichard

John has not yet made a final decision about recommending the Children’s Farm Home as a beneficiary of this year’s CBBT funds. The Farm Home hasn’t made the expected effort to help with sponsors, marketing, or internal promotion. Before any final decisions are made, John will check with the Children’s Farm Home staff in 2 weeks to see if anything more has been done. Joe suggested that we consider the Boys and Girls Club as a beneficiary. We’ve already established a relationship with them and an important club mission is to encourage bicycling among children and young people and to promote bicycle education.

John also reported that there are not many sponsors so far. His 50-60 phone calls have brought minimal returns. The Board spent some time discussing alternatives. An important point was that we need to make a strong link between the event and the beneficiary.

Sandy suggested we spend some time in a general discussion of our concerns about the club. Several concerns were discussed:

There are not enough volunteers.

People are not showing up for general meetings. Nancy summarized the meeting-related issues: the space itself (the room), the date (being consistent and sending reminders), and the topic for the meeting.

New people are not showing up regularly for the Saturday rides. Richard reminded us that we have to welcome and nurture new riders to keep them coming back. He suggested that we record each new rider’s attendance and send them a copy of the newsletter.

School Helmet Program. The club purchased 145 helmets for $1018.00. Richard and Nancy delivered them, dividing them among Corvallis, Albany, and Philomath. In Corvallis, Garfield, Lincoln, and Highland schools received 15 helmets each.

Nancy is ready to order another batch of helmets and distribute them to other schools in Corvallis that were missed the first time and keep a surplus to sell at Bike Saturday at the Boys and Girls club in May. The $2000.00 being used for helmets was originally set aside as matching funds for the bicycle education program proposed by Jim Lawrence. In the event that program did not receive T-21 funding, which it did not (meaning it will not be implemented), the money was to be committed to the helmet program.

Joe said he would like to see some formality applied to the process of expending these funds.

BTA Grant. The Corvallis School District has approved the BTA grant program for bicycle education. Katherine Inman will lead the project.

Boys and Girls Club. In return for the support the Boys and Girls Club provided for the Tandem Rally, MVBC has committed $3000.00 per year for 2 years to the Boys and Girls Club for a bicycle program. Joe moved that we ask the Boys and Girls Club to (1) invoice us for $2000.00 for facility rental for the Tandem Rally, no strings attached, and (2) provide a proposal for how they would use the other $1000 for this year and the $3000 for next year. The motion was unanimously approved.

May Bike Saturday Event. When the money issues remaining from the Tandem Rally are cleared up, Nancy will talk with Boys and Girls Club about the May event.

Martha has not received any responses to her announcement in last month’s newsletter that she will be moving to Olympia this summer and cannot continue to be newsletter editor beyond March and April. Kim Fawcett announced that she will not be available to collect ads during the summer. Thus we need three people: an editor, someone to manage ads, and someone to handle the mailing. Betsy Reid has offered to produce the newsletter through the summer, until the new board takes office next fall.

Monday, March 13, 7:00 pm, Highland View Middle School, Room 2: Chuck Daellenbach will present tales of adventure from his recent cross-country bicycle trip.

Monday, April 17, 7:00 pm, Highland View Middle School, Room 2: Introduction to this year’s loop tour.