Cyclist deserves a hand
KENDAL
KELLY World Staff Writer
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A2 of News
APACHE -- It's not every day that one
sees a person who rides a bicycle with his hands.
"I get a
lot of comments on my vehicle," said Jack Speer, 72.
Speer, a
participant in this week's Oklahoma FreeWheel 2004, causes people to look twice
as he passes, because instead of pedaling with his legs as all other
participants do, he propels his bike by pedaling with his hands on an unusual
contraption called a hand bike.
Speer is one
of nearly 1,000 people who is making the weeklong
403-mile trek across western
Participants
rode 51 miles from
Riders erected
a small city of tents
in Apache's city park and fairgrounds and spent the night. They enjoyed the
town's festivities, which included a fair-like atmosphere of food booths and a
stage on which a trick rope artist, a cowboy poet and a rattlesnake handler
performed.
The FreeWheel
route will take the bikers through many small towns that some people seldom
hear of, such as Cordell,
The event will
end Saturday afternoon in
FreeWheel is
not a race, so many participants take their time and enjoy the
For many
years, running, swimming and riding bikes was a way of life for Speer and his
wife, Margaret, 67.
Since the
1970s, the
But, four
years ago, Jack was forced to slow down when he had to get a hip replacement.
Although he
could no longer run, Jack still biked until he suffered another blow -- a
fractured pelvis. After the injury, he still tried to bike.
"I kept
having trouble," he said. "I'd lose my balance and fall."
It took a biking accident in which he
broke six ribs and punctured a lung for him to realize that he would have to give
up biking.
"When you
do something like that for years and years and years, and then you can't, it's
no fun," he said.
Over the next
two or three years, swimming was about the only physical activity Jack's body
allowed him to do, he said, but he attended the marathons and triathlons in
which Margaret competed to support her.
"It was
depressing for him not to participate, to take me and see all these people
having fun," Margaret said.
However, about
a year and a half ago, Margaret made a discovery that changed Jack's life.
While running
in a
"And so I
thought, 'Whoa, Jack could do that,' " she said.
As soon as she
told him about it, he went home and ordered an expensive hand bike from the
Internet.
"I told
him, 'I don't care how much it costs, get it!' "
Margaret said. "We put it together in the evening, and he was on it
by
It didn't take
long for Jack to get adjusted to using his hands instead of his feet. Two weeks
later, he rode in a 22-mile bike tour in
Jack completed
the event, performing better than he expected, he said.
Since then,
Jack has competed in many races with Margaret, including marathons and
half-marathons, in which he rides his hand bike and she runs.
"I found
out I could compete with people 30 years younger than me," he said.
"It helped me a lot because I was getting pretty down."
In the fall,
Jack is planning on hand biking in two marathons, and Margaret will run a
half-marathon and a marathon.
"Just
because you're old doesn't mean you can't do something," Margaret said.
Kendal Kelly
581-8413
kendal.kelly@tulsaworld.com
Copyright © 2004, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.