PETER BOWER - LIFE MEMBER 303
Peter L. Bower is a retired Phoenix educator and a longtime tour leader whose commitment to this organization is rock-solid. Consider the
dedication he wrote for "Cyclo-Touring Adventures," his detailed and colorful recollection of time spent on the open road: "For
Bikecentennial/Adventure Cycling founders and staff, without whose help this memoir would not have been possible."
As a kid in the 1950s, Peter explored the streets of his Pittsburgh neighborhood by bicycle, but his fondness for two-wheeled transport
eventually gave way to internal-combustion fever. Subsequently he did some riding while serving in the Peace Corps in Iran and attending
graduate school at Arizona State, but it wasn't until he chanced upon an article in the June 1974 issue of Esquire magazine that a more
intense fire was stoked. That article, in which Steve Sherman wrote about bicycling across the country, resulted in Peter's own
continent-crossing ride from Phoenix to Maine during summer 1975.
That fall, Peter read in Bicycling of a newly formed organization called Bikecentennial and about its big plans for the bicentennial
summer. This led to Peter's participation in a Leadership Training Course in Hemet, California, at the end of 1975. During the summer of
1976, Peter led an Adventure Cycling "U.S. West" trip from Reedsport, Oregon, to Pueblo, Colorado.
From 1976 through 1993, Peter led two more U.S. Wests, one Rocky Mountain High, six Great Parks Norths, one Cascade Connection, two
Sound-to-Seas, and one grueling North Star expedition. Collectively these tours involved 345 days on the road and 15,220 miles of riding --
all in all, a tremendous contribution to the success of Adventure Cycling, which is clearly important to Peter.
"The continued existence of this organization," he writes, "keeps the reality of traveling by bicycle alive everywhere."
A double dose of bad luck in the 1990s put an end to Peter's touring career. In 1990, he was diagnosed with a nervous system condition
brought on by a strange virus; a few years later, he was struck and severely injured by a car while commuting home from work. Today his
cycling is limited to half-hour jaunts around his Phoenix neighborhood, not unlike those he took as a boy in Pittsburgh.
In closing his memoir, Peter writes, "Each day I hold onto a wall as I mount my Gary Fisher mountain bike before pushing off for about a
30-minute neighborhood ride. During many a ride something will draw me into reverie about my days on the open road far from home. Perhaps
the wind, if there is any, will remind me of days in Wyoming. Perhaps the sight of clouds will remind me of how they would build to large
masses and reach great heights above the mountains. Perhaps it will be so cold that I have to wear a jacket and gloves, which will bring me
back to ascending many a mountain pass."
Peter Bower may have stopped touring, but he will never stop being a bicycle tourist, and we are proud to claim him as a Life Member.
Return to Life Membership page.
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