Columnist Susan Snyder: Month may revive passion to pedal

Friday, April 30, 2004 | 5:18 a.m.

In 1880 a group of bicyclists banded together and lobbied for something they needed that this country didn't have.

Paved roads.

Some 20 years before Ford Motor Co. existed, the nation's rutted, muddy wagon roads were being paved to accommodate the "wheelmen" who traveled under their own power and on two wheels.

The League of American Wheelmen -- now called the League of American Bicyclists -- had about 100,000 members 124 years ago. With more than 300,000 individual and affiliated members today, it is the oldest continuously operating nonprofit organization in the United States.

Since 1956 the LAB has promoted May as National Bike Month, which this year includes National Bike to Work Week, May 17-21, and Bike to Work Day, May 21 (for more information log onto www.bikemonth.com).

The group says some 42 million Americans own bikes. And for many of us, every month is "bike month."

We celebrate every pedal stroke that takes us out to Red Rock Canyon, down to Boulder City or over Mount Charleston's Deer Creek Road. Wind, hills, cold, rain -- all of it looks and feels better from the saddle of a two-wheeler.

The bicycle is an engineering feat of strength. What the Hoover Dam illustrates in immensity, the bicycle illustrates on a petite scale. The traditional diamond-shaped frame can easily carry 10 times its own weight. Yet it can weigh less than your desk chair.

It is no wonder that Orville and Wilbur Wright gave us bicycles before they gave us flight. Only designers who understood how to make something strong, yet lightweight, could lift our feet from the ground.

And all bicycles can fly. Ask any 10-year-old.

H.G. Wells rode a bicycle. So did Helen Keller. She pedaled in the "stoker," or rear, position on a tandem. John Lennon so loved his bicycle as a child, he took it to bed with him the first night he owned it.

And in 1898 Susan B. Anthony wrote of the bicycle: "I think it has done a great deal to emancipate women. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of freedom, self-reliance and independence."

Got us out of corsets, too.

Las Vegas' celebrity riders include Penn Jillette, whose recumbent tandem is hot pink, and Dick Smothers, who was a member of the Las Vegas Valley Bicycle club before he moved to Florida.

Sen. John Ensign is a blur on two wheels. The Las Vegas Republican averaged 19 mph on the grueling 108-mile course of Arizona's El Tour de Tucson in November 2002.

Most of the valley's bicyclists aren't famous, but many are remarkable. And you will meet one of them in Valley Views each Tuesday in May.

We won't talk about how many people died on bikes last year. We're not going to rant about bike paths or scary traffic or who belongs where. Those issues account for less than 1 percent of the bicycling universe but receive 99 percent of the ink and air time.

Truth be known, I hope to die on my bike.

Of old age.

Whether it's been 30 minutes or 30 years since you've straddled the saddle, celebrate your bike this month.

Forget the politics.

Remember the glee.