March 2025 Top Talk

Many of you know that my husband, Jim, passed away on February 4. We had been married for 53 years. He was responsible for me becoming a bicyclist and joining what was then Portland Wheelmen Touring Club.

Jim started getting back into cycling in the early 90’s. Then I joined him. We lived in Vancouver (still do) but joined PWTC instead of the Vancouver club because Jim was a printer and printed PWTC’s Rider’s Digest and Quick Releases. He was intrigued by all the rides, and we started riding with the club. That is to say, we showed up at the start, often with our friend Hannah, and quickly got dropped. But the three of us had a great time doing the rides!

Jim was a stronger rider than I was, so it was hard to ride “together.” That’s often the case with couples. There weren’t e-bikes back then, which is also a solution for that dilemma, so we got a tandem (an orange Co-Motion).  ✎  After that, we rarely rode our “singles.” In Jim’s opinion, any ride could be a tandem ride. Some tandem riders are more selective. Climbing can be a challenge due to physics: big bike, two adults, two people’s gear, and it’s a heavy load to slog up a big climb. Cycle Oregon: Ukiah to the Anthony Lakes lunch stop. Long climb. Lots and lots of people never made it to lunch! We did. On the tandem. And then there was a fantastic downhill! Meanwhile, buses were headed out to get the riders who couldn’t make it. What a day.

The tandem was like our marriage. As I said, Jim was stronger. He pushed big gears. I was not that strong and was more of a spinner. So, as new tandem riders, we found that compromise was key. Jim had to back off a bit, and I had to push slightly bigger gears. We got in sync. One concession Jim wisely made was adding a “drag brake” to the bike (again, think big and heavy and going down hills) and he gave ME, the stoker, control over that. At times that was a point of contention because I was not as fearless as Jim, but overall it was an excellent part of the compromise. Okay, Jim might have argued that point.

I often said, during those tandem riding years, that “the couple that plays together stays together.” Working, raising kids, being in what I call the trenches, you can lose sight of what drew you together in the first place. Cycling brought playtime back into our marriage. Adventure. Fun. Other people. Well worth the price of membership.

Over the years Jim volunteered with the club at STP, and we drove SAG many times for Pioneer Century®. We always had a lot of fun working that job together…although there were some small disagreements over what music to play. When Jim owned his own printing shop and printed the hard copy of the Quick Releases and Rider’s Digest, he would “donate” color sometimes to the otherwise black-and-white newsletter.

I hope you derive many of the same benefits and more from your PBC membership. And as Jim and I learned in our relationship, PBC helped us add WIDTH to the LENGTH of our lives.

Thank you all for your caring and support and friendship. Many of you sent cards and I appreciated them all – more than I can say.

Ann Morrow, President

To read the Quick Releases newsletter associated with the March 2025 Top Talk, go to Table of Contents.