When Jerry Turry took an early retirement offer in 1998 after 30 years as a Niles West High School teacher and athletic director, he didn’t have wintering in Arizona in mind. Within months he had a sales job with Chicago Packaging and was doubling his volunteer effort at Misericordia.
As important as this was to Turry, 57, one of the best parts of his new lifestyle was the freedom to indulge his true passion: bicycling.
“Being a high school A.D. meant going to work early and never getting home before dark, plus being busy on weekends,” he said.
It is safe to say Turry, a meticulous record-keeper from his administrative days, is making up for lost time behind handlebars.
In the year just concluded, he rode his bike 6,100 miles. In the three full calendar years since leaving Niles West, he has accumulated approximately 19,000 miles, or just short of five round trips to Seattle–a point he has reached after 12 years of steady pedaling.
But forget long rides. Most of the miles were logged between his Lincolnwood home and Once Upon A Bagel, a Highland Park restaurant. It’s about 33 miles round-trip, and Turry does it as a full-fledged, but junior member of what is loosely called the Green Bay Road “Dawn Patrol.”
On weekdays, this august group also includes Frank Paulo, 68, and Peter Bodi, 71, both retired. Bodi is a former Old Orchard Junior High math teacher and neighbor of Turry’s; Turry was invited to go on the daily, early-morning ride after he left Niles West. On weekends the trio typically is joined by “youngsters” Tim Olsen, 53, Dave McWhinnie, 46, George Ammerman, 43, and Brad Prendergast, 48.
Some form of the “Dawn Patrol” bike ride has taken place for more than 20 years, with a variety of cyclists dropping in and out of the mix. And “dawn” means exactly that: The weekday group gathers at Turry’s at 5 a.m. to make the trek.
In the winter (“We don’t go if it’s in the teens or the roads aren’t clear or it’s raining or snowing,” Turry said), the trip is frequently completed before daylight. Once Upon A Bagel was selected, after much trial and error, because it was open in the wee hours.
“I get to ride 2 1/4 extra miles to meet Pete and Jerry, since I live in Chicago, and sometimes when the alarm goes at 4:30 it would be nice to shut it off and go back to sleep,” said Paulo, who worked in the publishing industry before retiring eight years ago. “But the thought of those two guys waiting for me–and we always call the night before if we have a legitimate excuse for missing–is what drives me.
“It’s important to have commitments like that to keep you going. After a while, you build up real bonds, sharing stories, talking about your kids, retirement, that sort of thing. You’d be very self-conscious if you didn’t show up to ride.”
Turry’s 6,000 miles per year is definitely at the high end of the biking spectrum, but he would be the first to admit that all that mileage was unimaginably out of his reach just 12 years ago.
“I was sitting in my office at school one day, smoking a pipe, and one of my teachers came up to me and said I had to start getting more exercise–it was a good way to relieve stress,” he said. “In those years I didn’t even own a bike, so I went out and bought a mountain bike, which was totally the wrong kind to have for being on roads.”
Since then, Turry has graduated to the more appropriate–and pricier–touring models. He now has five bikes.
Turry has accomplished all this–with the blessing of his non-biking wife, Nancy–as a Type 1 diabetic requiring regular insulin injections. Recent innovations, such as the pump method for receiving medication, have given him more control over his daily schedule.
Making connections
In his first summer of biking (’90), Turry joined a small contingent of local riders on a weeklong trek across Illinois to benefit the American Lung Association (“kind of ironic, considering I was a smoker at the time,” he said), and he became hooked.
It was during this event that he began building associations with others and learning of similar events.
In fact, while “Dawn Patrol” is where he racks up mileage, the centerpiece for Turry’s two-wheeled energy is the Chicago Urban Bicycling Society (CUBS) he co-founded six years ago with a half-dozen other area riders. The organization, now up to about 25 core members, was formed solely to ride each July in RAGBRAI, the Des Moines Register’s annual 500-mile ride across Iowa that attracts approximately 10,000 bikers, the largest event of its kind in the world.
“I did my first RAGBRAI in ’92 and fell in love with it,” Turry said. “After four years there were several of us who felt we could do a better job organizing a group from here, and that’s how we got started. “It’s become a really important part of my life, and I think the others who started it feel the same way.”
Roughing it across Iowa
Each year the members of the not-for-profit CUBS charter a bus, hire a crew (including a masseuse), line up housing for the week and rent support vehicles to make the trip to Iowa for RAGBRAI–the kind of effort Turry revels in organizing.
“It’s like being an athletic director all over again, right down to lining up a bus,” he said. “You become a detail guy when you’re a high school administrator, or you get out of the business.”
The CUBS take on 30 or so extra riders every year for RAGBRAI, and the final mix is an eclectic assortment of people as young as their 20s, mostly in their 50s and upward to 75-year-old Bob Kipper, a charter member. The group has its own Web site (www.ragbraicubs.org).
In past summers, CUBS has included teachers, real estate agents, Chicago police officers, lawyers, judges, landscapers, commercial real estate developers, filmmakers, journalists, stockbrokers, counselors, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, actuaries, students, salesmen and women–and, always, a number of retirees.
Randy Karon, band director at Barrington High School, brings a bugle each year. His specialty is playing “Taps” for the group every night at 10.
“We don’t take inexperienced riders anymore, but every year we do get people who’ve never tried something as challenging as a weeklong event,” Turry said.
“The common denominator, if there is one, is that everyone is into physical activity and staying fit. That, and it’s always fun to meet different people. You learn a lot about someone when you’re riding 75 miles a day in all kinds of weather and terrain and at all kinds of speeds.”
Though RAGBRAI is the lone event that CUBS members officially tackle, the group, with Turry as the catalyst, also supports local events such as Chicago’s Boulevard Bicycle Ride, Udder Century in Union, Ill., and the annual Andy Hartwig Memorial Ride in Barrington.
“The thing about biking is that once you build up your endurance and find a comfort zone, you start looking for outlets,” he said. “The camaraderie follows when you find others at your level.”
The lure of the bicycle
Biking’s popularity is on the rise in the Chicago area. More trails have been carved out in recent years by local federations, and on any given weekend from April through October, great swarms of colorful Spandex-clad riders can be spotted pounding their way along the roadways.
The National Association of Sporting Goods Manufacturers estimates nearly 43 million Americans bike a minimum of six times per year. Locally, the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation reports as many as 50,000 riders, helped by our unusually mild winters in the last few years, bike year-round–many as a means of commuting to work.
But unlike the “Dawn Patrol,” not many can be found pounding away in the winter before the sun rises.
“You pull up on a bike in January and walk into a restaurant at 6 a.m., people who don’t know you tend to look at you like you’re nuts,” Turry said. “You get used to it and actually, since we’re wearing Gore-Tex most of the time, we’re sweating.
“I tell people the most important thing isn’t really the clothing,” he added. “It’s a good set of lights: It’s dark out there at that hour in the morning.”
Indoor biking spins into popularity
Where do bicyclists go in the winter?
Unlike Jerry Turry and the Dawn Patrollers, who keep pounding away outdoors as long as they can, many Chicago area riders simply put their bikes in storage in October and wait for spring. But an increasing number have taken up spinning–or pedaling on a stationary bicycle in a synchronized, indoor group setting–as a means to stay in shape in the off-season.
There’s no exact count of participants, but officials with the Illinois Parks & Recreation Association and the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago agree: This relatively new sport is the hottest group exercise they offer.
“It’s one of those rare activities that can draw both elite athletes and beginners to the same room,” said Allison Metcalf, a program director for the Rich Port YMCA in La Grange. “It also draws a lot of men, who historically don’t participate as much in indoor, aerobic-oriented classes.
“I’ve never seen another program take off like spinning.”
It is almost impossible to walk into most YMCAs or park district facilities, especially in the early morning or early evening hours, and not find a class thumping away in a sweaty, warm room.
Support of peer pressure
“There aren’t many group activities where you can actually control your own destiny and go at your own speed,” said Jill Bartholomew, president of the parks & recreation association. “The peer pressure can make you work harder, but with the music, plus other people surrounding you, it’s fun.”
At Rich Port, one of the busiest spinning centers in the Chicago area, there are 28 stationary bikes available for 32 weekly classes, and rarely are sessions less than 75 percent full, according to Metcalf. At the Lakeview YMCA on Chicago’s North Side, the most popular classes meet at 5:45 a.m. on weekdays.
At park district facilities in communities such as Elmhurst, Elk Grove, Bartlett, Lake Forest and Skokie, spinning also has firmly taken root.
The indoor sport also quickly became popular in Glenview’s year-old park district Park Center Health & Fitness Club, catching officials there by surprise.
Only 10 stationary bicycles were installed at Park Center when it opened, but every daily class has a waiting list. More bikes have been ordered, said group exercise coordinator Ginger Hartler. “The surge this winter has been unbelievable,” she said.
Spinning-only studios open
In addition to classes being added to private health club programming, spinning-only studios such as Beverly Ride-On and Spynergy in Winnetka have sprouted.
“January is when my classes really get hopping,” said Janae Hunziker, an instructor at Ride-On [above a converted bowling alley] on the city’s Far South Side.
“Probably it has something to do with New Year’s resolutions, but this year the sign-ups have increased. I get a lot of people in their 30s and 40s, but I’ve got them in their 70s too.”
Spynergy owner Kathy Daley added: “We’ve noticed a lot of customers have turned their spouses onto spinning because they can each do it at their own speed. It’s friendlier to your body than running and other exercises, and yet, like my husband says, there aren’t many ways left you sweat that much in a 50-minute workout.”
With music–always an important ingredient during workouts–blaring, spinning instructors put cyclists through a variety of speeds, tensions and synchronized moves no one should be able to get through without perspiring. In addition to obvious cardiovascular benefits, the activity is ideal for outdoor bikers to help keep appropriate cycling muscles taut.
Riding uphill
“It’s even possible to simulate hills,” Metcalf said, “and that’s something riders don’t get much of around here when they’re outside.”
Not every spinner is interested in outdoor biking, however. The exercise is used by some to rehab injuries, get in shape for another sport or lose weight.
“What we’ve noticed is that a lot of runners have turned to spinning,” Bartholomew said. “There’s less shock and the workout is more efficient.
“You can accomplish a lot on an indoor bike in an hour. That’s very appealing, especially to the older crowd.”
— Mike Conklin
