PRESIDENT
VICE PRES
SECRETARY

Tacoma Wheelmen's Club

MARCH 1988

752-8636
752-6028
565-2742
475-2131

P.O. Box 99555 NEWSLETTER. .TERRY & CANDY MURPHY 848-7597

Tacoma Wa 98499-0555

MARCH CLUB MEETING PROGRAM

It's the time of year when all the happy campers are "gearing" up for the coming season. To learn first hand about the required gear and the

packing process join us for the March club meeting.

Steve & Phyllis

Lay and Jim Davis, all veteran campers, will bring their own camping equipment and give us interested, would be campers, the benefit of their collective knowledge. We will be able to avcid many of the trials

Hmmm.... Maybe
I overpacked!!

--d errors usually
necessary in any

new venture by taking advantage of their experience. From pots and pans to bags and tents, come and anjoy our own special version of show and tell. The meeting

is on March (1502 au
Jom ab 7802 So 2Le

in the So. End
Neighborhood Commun-

ity Center.

DAFFODIL CLASSIC VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! ! Workers are still need- ed to drive the course to pick up stranded ri- ders, and to work some of the checkpoints. If you are able to help please call Steve Ler-

son at 473-7136 or
Greg-Torfin 537-5823.

Date Time Miles

Start Point

TACOMA WHEELMEN’S BICYCLE CLUB
PROPOSED 1988 BUDGET

Cash Balance, January 1 $8,309
Merbership Dues 2,500
Daffodil Classic-Receipts 6,000*

Disburarents (4,500) Net 4,500 Peninsula Metric- Receipts 2,600 Disborsarents (2,350) Net 250 Club Banguet-- Receipts 586 Disbursarents (986) Net (400) Interest and Other Receipts 0 Total Cash Receipts, Net 3,850 Total Cash Available 127 159)

Cash Disbursarents
Newsletter 1,840
Equipment 200
Progran (8x$25/progran) 200
Social Events Cau
Club Patches and Pins 450
Dues, Contributions 400
Merbership Secretary 150

» Brochure 0
Postage and Other Expenses 258
Community Service-Restricted 452
Special Club Project(s) 2,000

Total Cash Disbursements 6,900

Cash Balance, Decarber 31 3,200

* Assures a minimm of 800 and 400 riders for the Daffodil and Peninsula Metric. Maxims are $9,000 and $3,100 far an evding cash balance of $8,759.

** Trcludes: Picnic-$600, Christmas-$300, Halloween
and other-$50. ‘Total=$950.

Do you want to be more involved in club ac-—
tivities? All interested members are invi-
ted to join Greg Torfin and Kathy Davis at
Greg's house at 9903 40th Ave E. for the
first Peninsula Metric Meeting this year.
4 he meeting will be held on March 8th at
~~ £7:00P.M. Issues which will be discussed
Y tnelude the patch design and the flyer. All
are welcome. For more information call
Greg at 53/-5823 or Kathy at 4/5-1839.

| He’d never peddle

his pedaler

days, the talk turned to money, and my
friend asked, “What's the best
investment you ever made?”

I didn't save the baseball cards I had as a kid, never owned a home in the ‘70s, and will never be accused of possessing insider information on the stock market. Nevertheless knew immediately what to reply.

“My bike.”

In January of 1971, I went into a Portland bike shop and told the man working there I wanted to buy a bicycle.

“What kind
of bike do you
want?” he said.

Thad no
idea. I
mentioned that
1 was thinking
of bicycling in
Canada during
the coming
summer.

A S CONVERSATIONS often do these

By PAUL FRANTZ
Fer The Register-Guard
A

“Buy a touring bike. I can let you have a
Raleigh International for $230." At the time, the
sum was considerable, more than half my
monthly salary and twice what I was paying for
room and board. But the man had one in stock,

in a color he described as coffee brown, and I
let him show it to me.

As he rattled on and on about the bike's
technical virtues (of which I understood not a
word), the clean geometry of its gleaming
frame so hypnotized me that I told the man I'd
buy it

That afternoon, I bicycled home on my new bike [took the hills in the highest gear because that's the gear it was in when it came out of the

crate. I had no idea how to change to a lower
one.

At home, I read the instruction manual, which told me always to keep the tires inflated to their proper level. So I took the bike toa service station and inflated the tires until they were good and hard. When the rear tire exploded that evening during supper, my landlady shouted, “Jesus, Joseph and Mary! ‘They're shooting at us,” and locked herself in the bathroom.

I did take the trip to Canada — or started. I got as far as Multnomah Falls, where my knee_

gave out. In a state of high disgust, [consigned _

the Raleigh to the ferns and Oregon grape,
where I hoped it would rust and die a slow
death. { almost left it in the bushes, but then I
thought hard for both of us and very slowly
rode the bike home in the rain.

Sixteen years later, the bike has survived 11
moves, a wife, two kids, and me.

When I take it in to a bike shop to be
greased, the mechanics look at the Reynolds
frame and the Campagnolo components and
start muttering about craftsmanship. They tell
me the bike's worth about three times what I
paid for it.

It’s a feeling nothing else | own gives me. When I take my car in to be repaired, with 80,000 miles on it, the mechanics never say, “They just don’t make ‘em like this any more.”

The return on investment of this bicycle is
not limited to the value of what it would cost to
replace the bike in today’s market. The bike
has about 15,000 commuter miles on it, to and
from work or university, and that’s a lot of bus
tokens.

The money saved commuting on a bike is
the least of the dividends. A day started on a
bicycle begins at a pace consistent with sanity
and seems to have a potential for unlimited
energy and creativity — unless it’s raining.

There is even the illusion that you're not really riding off to work at all, but instead you're taking the day off or completing the last leg of the Tour de France. With practice, such illusions can be maintained well into the work day, or until your colleagues ask why you're jabbering in French.

My bike looks its age. It’s not unscathed. The coffee brown has been rubbed away in places. The front wheel has a wobble where someone running after a Frisbee took a short cut through my front fork. And I've put an ugly kiddie carrier on the back that hides the bicycle’s grace.

The bike also is outmoded. There are now lighter touring bikes, faster racing bikes, and a hew generation of mountain bikes that are apparently able to ride up staircases, forecast the weather, and set up your tent for you.

But I can’t trade in what is now a member of the family. This bike is my '57 Chevy, a reminder of who I was at 21 and 29, and 33 and 37. It can recount a few dead-end jobs and some high hopes, rainy mornings and sun-filled afternoons, rides to see my “baby” and rides carrying our new baby.

Some time ago, my wife, whom I met about two months before I bought the bike and who also has turned out to be a fine investment, observed me cleaning the bike's chain and wiping off the frame, a dirty, mindless task that IT fove doing. When I was done, she asked me, “What if somebody stole the bike? You walked out one morning, and it was gone. What then?”

My first impulse, I said, would be to ask for the death penaity, if they ever caught the guy

“But it wouldn't be the end of the world,”
she continued. “A bike may be-a wonderful
invention, but it’s not like a human being. You
can’t snuggle up with a bicycle and watch the
late night movie, for instance.”

“Not unless you take off the pedals,” I said.

(Paul Frantz is a Eugene freelance writer)