Ducks quacking up FreeWheelers
JARED
JANES World Staff Writer
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A15 of News
Team Duck's flight into the annual bicycle trek is about one
thing: good times.
If they
ruffled any feathers over the first 305 miles of the cross-state bike ride,
they promise they didn't mean any harm. They were just having a good time.
"The
rides are all about having fun," said Jimmy Hugunin,
a "founding feather" of Team Duck, a ragtag group of
"We ride,
and we sing, and we stop, and we swim. Today, we came in too early and were too
clean."
Team Duck is
one of several teams participating in FreeWheel this year. Teams are mostly
informal groups of riders who go to the same events and hang out together.
Some might be
competitive in trying to be the quickest riders each day, but you'd be
hard-pressed to find a competitive feather on the Ducks' bodies -- unless
they're competing to see who can have the most fun.
Before FreeWheel this year, a Team Duck
member got on the message board on the FreeWheel Web site and issued a
challenge: No group could have more fun on FreeWheel than the Ducks.
Team Crude, a
Tulsa-based team, took up the challenge.
Over the first
few days of FreeWheel, the two teams have messed with each other. At one point,
Team Crude purchased several rubber ducks, which Team Duck uses as their
symbol, and called them hostages. That inspired Operation Liberation.
Kelly Hinnen and Mary Ann Hugunin, both
Team Duck members, rescued one of the ducks while they were in a restaurant and
found two sitting on a table.
They swooped
in and recovered the "hostages" but had to return one duck in exchange
for a sun visor that was left on the table.
The entire
game is an effort to get to know the riders who are on the route with you, the
Ducks say.
Team Duck
formed when several riders on Biking Across Kansas, an annual
The riders
wanted to get horns on their bicycles like members of Team Recumbent had, but
Team Recumbent wouldn't let them until they had finished their first Biking
Across Kansas.
"They
told us we couldn't have horns our first year riding with them," Team Duck
"founding feather" Chris Slater said. "And we weren't going to
get a bell."
So they got
duck calls.
And made a
nuisance of themselves with the calls.
So much so
that fellow riders got so fed up with the calls that they hijacked them when
the newcomers were eating lunch.
After discovering that their duck calls
were gone, the newcomers christened themselves Team Duck. Not too long
afterward, the small group had T-shirts, hats and badges to prove their
membership.
"We got
all ducked out," Slater said.
Membership in
Team Duck is easily attained. All a rider has to do is show interest in the
team and a willingness to have a good time. Team Duck has a quick
"in-duck-tion" ceremony, and new members
are presented a necklace with a small plastic duck on it to signify membership.
"Some of
us ride recumbents, some of us ride uprights, and
some ride tricycles," Jimmy Hugunin said.
"It's not about the type of bike or your age or anything else. It's all
about having fun. If you can have a good time and not take this seriously,
you're in."
After one bike
ride in
Team Duck
doesn't have plans for a giant pillow fight on the last two days of FreeWheel,
but members said they will find some way to entertain themselves on the ride
from
If you're not
willing to have fun on rides after induction, Team Duck reserves the right to
officially "de-duck-t" your membership.
They've had to
do it only once: The rider wasn't having fun.
Jared Janes 581-8320
jared.janes@tulsaworld.com
Copyright © 2004, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.