Group peddles 17 miles to work out at center

These colorful bike riders have cycled down to work out at CHRISTUS St. Micheal Health and Fitness Center in Atlanta, Texas. From left, they are Jerry Harp, Roger Warren, Rodney Bynum, Jonathan Cornett, Richard York and his daughter Abbie.
These colorful bike riders have cycled down to work out at CHRISTUS St. Micheal Health and Fitness Center in Atlanta, Texas. From left, they are Jerry Harp, Roger Warren, Rodney Bynum, Jonathan Cornett, Richard York and his daughter Abbie.

A strange feat of several local bicyclists is that they will peddle over from Linden to exercise at CHRISTUS St. Michael Health and Fitness Center.

That's 17 miles one way, folks, and their pedals aren't automated.

Isn't that all the workout one needs?

Well, no. Apparently bicycling brings out the joy in people. And group riding is even all the merrier.

Jerry Harp of Linden says it's all about "happenstance."

"We just get together. No one plans. Someone just calls and off we go," Jerry said. This was after breaking nary a sweat at the workout center. He's in such good shape.

True, bicycles are about happenstance. Remember when you got your first one? Was that not a surprise, an unlikely happening? One of life's most memorable?

This reporter recalls his. It was a $20 used bike that fit the sidewalk perfectly in front of our house at 643 N. Main, Paris, Texas. We loved our bikes so much we gave them pet names and paint jobs.

Bicycling itself is a happenstance because it takes a while-and a fall or two-to learn how to ride.

Somehow, learning to ride just happens, too. Parents in those days didn't lope alongside with outstretched hands while you swerved here and there on a bike a little too big for you. You just fell, laughed and got up again all by yourself. It just happened.

Remember the flat tires and their repair? The oily chain, the downhill wind, the uphill strain and the knowledge that parents weren't meant to take you where you wanted to go? Once you had a bicycle, you had freedom, and you went. That was pure happenstance.

"Anything happen to you today, son (or daughter)?" Dad would ask getting home from work.

"Yes, the fenders and pedals fell off," you'd quietly admit, adding, "It was just a happenstance."

So, for all these reasons, it was fun Friday to see seven cyclists roll up to the CHRISTUS St. Michael workout center in Atlanta.

They'd pedaled over to meet at the center to talk about pedaling still farther the next day to Beavers' Bend in Oklahoma. 

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They are part of the Cass County Cycling Group, which has about 61 members. It makes and shows its trip videos regularly on Facebook.

Cyclists laugh a lot. 

And while the journey is the most fun, they also like to brag about about where they've been. 

They draw maps and mileage. 

One posted the precise location of the two dogs he met along the way. Seems they were able to run 22 miles an hour for a half-mile-finally getting the biker's promise he'd never return.

Cornett and Rodney Bynum will pretty soon have the most to talk about. They've entered the Wichita Falls "Hotter'N Hell" 100-mile bike ride Aug. 24.

They're dressed for the part as well. Their uniforms are of black-and-white tuxedos. Not real, of course, but quite distinguished.

"Going to be some 13,000 riders there, and if get separated we want to be able to find each other quickly," Bynum said of their costumes.

That meeting will almost certainly be a happenstance.

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