Sometime last spring, Thomas Hill pledged to his co-workers he would buy a bicycle and ride it to work when gas hit $3.50 per gallon. That day soon came, and he shunned his Ford Ranger pickup for a two-wheeler.
It wasn’t pretty.
“I knew I was out of shape. Most all of the hills I had to walk up,” he said. “When the wind was blowing real hard, it took me two hours each way. With my big, wide body, I was catching everything.”
Hill works the graveyard shift at Delta Centrifugal Corp., which means he’s heading into Temple in the evening when others are going home, and vice versa, in the morning.
On a recent ride back to Zabcikville, Hill found the bike gear he favors, one of 24, and pedaled past white picket fences, across railroad tracks, and down Texas Highway 53 through Bell County corn fields. The pastoral setting takes on a different feel at 15 mph; and the warm August breeze is a stark contrast to frigid air gushing through an automobile’s air conditioning vents.
So far, most everybody on the road has been friendly and safe, Hill said. Although someone passing in a car on a sweltering afternoon once waved a beer in front of him.
Working up a sweat on a slow climb near the tiny community of Seaton, Hill said he has lost a little weight, but bodybuilding wasn’t the impetus to his lifestyle change anyway.
“It’s just the challenge. Once you get on the bike and get started it’s actually great,” Hill said. “Even if you’re tired, it kind of relaxes you when you get home.”
Not long after Hill began showing up at work on his bike, another Delta employee took up commuting on two wheels. Eric Germundsen, 31, said to heck with it when his car broke down. He commutes about four miles one-way.
Germundsen said riding a bike to work puts him in a good mood to face his 12-hour shift as a machinist. And when the sun peeks over Interstate 35 at 7 a.m., and his shift is over, riding home helps him unwind.
But it’s not just Delta Centrifugal employees who are commuting to work via two wheels and a chain. Patrick White, a bicycle mechanic for seven years at Sun Country Bikes in Temple, said he sees all kinds of folks coming in, buying and repairing bikes they can ride to work.
“They’re just talking about wanting to save on gas, park the car for the summer, and ride to work,” White said. “And anywhere from three to 10 miles is the usual distance that they’re wanting to cover in one direction.”
White said “entry level” bikes start at about $250. Depending on how fancy you want to get - disc brakes, rapid-fire shifters, cushy seats. A new bike with all the bells and whistles can cost three grand.
Local bike riders are mostly frugal and practical, White said.
“In Temple, money is scarce in some areas, and people just want a bike for utilitarian reasons. They lost their license, or they want to commute to work, or they have to ride the bike for one reason or another … it’s become a necessity.”
As for the Zabcikville commuter, he plans to keep riding, weather permitting. And his pickup is gathering dust from a nearby cornfield.
“I haven’t driven it more than eight or nine times since the end of May,” the soft-spoken Hill said. “I don’t use it much anymore.”
