Rocky path for school’s bike club

Published 2:47 pm Thursday, April 10, 2008

Wilfred Chan’s love of long-distance bicycling began when he was young. In fifth grade, his friend Orion Burt invited him on a bike ride with his family. Chan didn’t have a bike, so he used his mom’s. They rode 30 miles.

“My legs were burning,” said Chan, now a junior at Shorewood High School. But soon after that, he got his own bike and started riding.

As he got older, cycling was a ticket to freedom, letting him get places without a car.

“It’s that feeling you have at seven or eight, riding without training wheels,” Chan said. “It never loses its thrill.”

Now Chan wants to extend a similar invite to the students at Shorewood High School. Since winter of 2006, he’s been trying to start a Bicycle Club at the school. Though he’s gone to extensive efforts to make it happen, he’s been stymied in trying to get the show on the road.

It all started last year, when he and his friend Joseph Rhae decided they could make a dream a reality.

“We had these dreams of a Shorewood pace line, with all these jerseys,” Chan said.

A pace line is a long line of riders cycling together. The front cyclers break the wind for the rest of the crew.

Social studies teacher Mikael Christensen agreed to be the club’s adviser, but Chan’s application to start a club at the school was rejected because of liability. The club would need to find its own insurance rather than use the school’s.

Chan decided to take the club underground, and just meet informally with friends to talk about cycling and take rides.

But then he discovered the national organization USA Cycling, which offers $1 million a year in insurance coverage to bicycle clubs. In exchange, the clubs pay a $125 flat fee and a $50 registration fee.

Also, all club members pay $30. That’s the problem, Chan said. He and Christensen decided the cost was prohibitive, especially for new riders.

Since then, he’s been looking for funding to lower the fee so he can make the club an official Shorewood High School club and reach out to far more students.

“We looked for money everywhere – sofa cracks, everywhere,” Chan said.

Chan has approached the Cascade Bicycle Club and put ads on Craigslist.org. He attended events like the Bike Expo in Seattle, shaking hands and handing out flyers. All yielded nothing.

At one point, an anonymous donor walked into the Shorewood High School office saying he wanted to make a donation to the club. Mistakenly, he was told there was no club by someone who didn’t know about it, Chan said. The man hasn’t been back.

Since then, Chan has approached bike shops, and now the manager of Gregg’s Greenlake Cycle has said the store might donate bikes to the club. He’s also approached the Shorewood Boosters.

So the future doesn’t look bad, Chan said, but there’s still no assured funding source.

Although the club is in limbo, there is student interest in it.

About 18 people showed up to an informal ride in September.

“We stuck to the trail because I was afraid to do the road,” Chan said.

An informational meeting in January drew 36 students.

Chan’s been persistent in trying to starting a formal school club because he wants to reach out to more people.

If Chan creates a school club, he can advertise with posters at the school and announce rides over the school’s announcements. Cycling is more fun in a group, and a lot of people won’t ride unless someone invites them to do so, he said.

The club would stick to paved trails like the Interurban and the Burke–Gilman, Chan said, since busy roads are risky.

Riding isn’t intuitive in Shoreline, Chan said.

“People here visiting friends a few blocks away get in the car and drive,” he said. “It’s a car culture here – a Costo culture.”

Meanwhile, Chan continues to bring other friends into the bicycle fold.

Andy Wen, a Shorewood junior, took up riding after Chan called him up one day to bike together. Before then, he didn’t even own a bike.

On Friday morning, April 4, he biked to Chan’s house from Mountlake Terrace along the Interurban Trail in miserable cold and drizzle for a group ride.

Chan and his friends usually ride on weekends, biking down the Interurban Trail to Seattle’s Greenlake and the University District, where they hang out and eat Mexican food.

It takes them a half hour to an hour to get there by bike.

“You see so much more on a bike,” Chan said. “It’s wholesome.”