45
“I started riding when I was 60,” she explains.
“I had some health issues and I wanted to clear
them up without a lot of medicine.”
At the literal heart of her health issues was a
problem with weight; one that in the three years
that have since passed, she has, by anyone’s definition,
addressed satisfactorily.
“I’ve put about 16,000 miles on my bike,”
Pitts says, “and lost 130 pounds.”
Another club member you might find in this
rear echelon of riders, although he does get himself
into the middle of the pack now and again,
is 71-year-old Al Schroetel, chairman of the
CFC Advocacy Committee and assistant secretary
to the membership committee. Schroetel’s
been riding all his life, back to the days in the
1940s when he’d ride his bike to
school in Falmouth, Maine.
“Always ridden,”
Schroetel says. “Never
stopped. In college, I
didn’t have enough
money for a car, so I
rode.”
Schroetel came
to Wilmington in
1963, where he “fell
in love with the bursar
at Wilmington College and married her.” Bike
riding in and around Wilmington at the time
was a lot less hazardous than it is today, and his
awareness of the differences informs his presence
on both the club’s advocacy committee, as well
as the board of a statewide advocacy group.
Pitts and Schroetel are just two of more than
400 members of the Cape Fear Cyclists club
who not only head out on the road on a regular
basis to enjoy themselves, but take the time and
make the effort to highlight bicycle safety while
advocating for local and state legislation to make
the roads they travel safe for everybody.
“It started out as a riding club,” says Jim
Mincher, owner of Two Wheeler Dealer and
member since about 1974, “and then it sort
of died down and came back to life
with racers. And then they got to
doing something else.”
“(The club) is stronger
now than ever,” Mincher
adds, “(with an emphasis)
on touring, fitness
and advocacy — the
government end of it.”
Recently, in the fall
of 2009, a mountain
bike contingent of the
The riders
regroup at
*
convenient points
along the route and
emphasize ahead of
time that no one is
left behind.
Members of the Cape Fear Cyclists join other biking enthusiasts in the 2011 River to Sea ride sponsored
by the Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.
Participants pedal from downtown Wilmington to Wrightsville Beach Park and back.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
Melissa Johnson
Frances Bullard
Don and Ross Hamilton
Fred Bingham