Conejo senior cyclists cover lots of ground
Before the morning mists have lifted, while the less hearty linger over morning coffee or turn up their car heaters, the Old Kranks are on the road. Wearing windbreakers, helmets and cycling shorts, members of the Goebel Senior Adult Center's bicycling club start their mornings pumping and pedaling. They ride every day except Tuesdays and Thursdays. Their weekday jaunts are 6.2-mile laps around Westlake Lake. Weekends they often cycle out of the area, half-day jaunts to places like Santa Barbara or along the Ventura coast. Next up will be their 30-mile Strawberry Fields ride through the Camarillo and Oxnard areas.
"I get a lot of pleasure and I can get away from everything," said 71-year-old Thousand Oaks cyclist Jules Meisler, who founded the club five years ago with fellow cyclist Herb Berger. "We found there were quite a few older folks, 50 and older, looking for a cycling club, something they could do at their own pace to improve their health and cycling abilities," said Berger, 72.
"We have three functions," said Carter McIntyre of Canoga Park, president of the club, which has grown to almost 90 members. "The first is to have fun. The second, obviously, is to get some exercise. The third is to meet other people."
"We're as much a social group as we are a cycling group," Berger said. The mornings they ride, the Old Kranks gather at the East Coast Bagel shop in the Westlake Plaza shopping center. By 8:30 a.m., they are lapping the lake. Afterward, they reconvene at the bagel shop's outdoor tables for coffee, conversation and eats. "We get our exercise, then we fill up on bagels," McIntyre said.
Every so often, they head for more distant locales. Each fall members leave their cars at the Santa Ana train station and pedal their bikes to San Diego. It's 104 miles and two days, with an overnight stop at Carlsbad. Coming up are a cycling expedition through the Napa Valley wine country and a three-day trip through Death Valley, McIntyre said.
The summer before last, Dave Wilkins, 68, pedaled 3,170 miles from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., on a ride benefiting the American Cancer Society.