9
2011
Columbus: The Birthplace of Organized, Long-Distance Cycling Events
As you all know, this weekend was the 50th annual Tour of the Sciota River Valley, or TOSRV.
What you might not know is this ride was the start of the bike boom and all the organized, long-distance cycling events that are so popular today. Sure, Dayton is the birthplace of aviation, but Columbus is the birthplace of organized, long-distance cycling events. Dayton has the Wright Brothers, we have the Siples.
It all began in 1962, when Charles Siple decided to take his son, Greg, who was 16, for a “little” bike ride, from their home in the Columbus area to Portsmouth and back. This father-and-son trip grew and grew, and by the 1970s, thousands of riders were riding TOSRV every year.
“There was nothing like this anywhere else,” Greg told me.
Cyclists from far and wide would come to Columbus, Greg said. They would ride TOSRV, go back to their home states and say: Why don’t we have anything else like this?
Soon they did, and organized, long-distance rides in other states began sprouting like the stalks of corn along the TOSRV route. Pretty much every state now has one, and Ohio has several.
But wait, there’s more. Greg and his wife, June, and another local couple, Dan and Lys Burden came up with the idea for Bikecentennial in 1976, a coast-to-coast ride from Reedsport, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia. About 2,000 people did the ride over the course of that celebratory summer, which led to a renewed interest in cycling and coast-to-coast bike trips. This, in turn, led to the Siples and Burdens eventually starting the Adventure Cycling Association, a non-profit group based in Missoula, Montana. The organization promotes all sorts of long distance and cross-country bike trips and offers thousands and thousands of miles of cycling maps.
Greg is the art director for Adventure Cyclist, the group’s monthly magazine. And he was here this weekend to ride TOSRV. As for his father, Charlie, he’s 92 and doing well, although not cycling so much any more.
There you have it, proof positive that Columbus is the epicenter for organized, long-distance cycling events. Thank you Charles and Greg – you started something special way back when. You helped kick start a renewed interest in cycling, got hundreds of thousands of people on their bikes, exercising and riding, and seeing the amazing sights this country has to offer.
And now, the concept of organized, long-distance cycling events is helping to beat cancer.
Sure some of the first organized long distance rides in the US were started in Columbus, but Paris-Brest-Paris, dating back to 1896 (1931 for randonneur, or touring cyclists) is the true ‘birthplace’ for long distance cycling events.