Wendel Yale keeps on riding

by Emma Kingkeo, Reston Letter Intern

Wendel Yale on a tour with Bike Virginia. Photo contributed by Wendel Yale

At 85 years old, Wendel Yale turns heads when he pedals down the road on his trusty bicycle. Most people his age are thinking of slowing down for retirement and relaxation. But having ridden through the city, state, and even internationally in Canada and overseas for two years in England, biking has been one of Yale’s greatest passions, and he does not plan to give it up anytime soon. With every mile he bikes, he’s rewriting what it means to grow old.

“Now that I’m in my eighties, I’m starting to feel old, but I’m not going to stop biking,” he said.

Aging comes with its downsides that not even the fittest person could avoid. For Yale, that means arthritis in almost every joint in his body. He doesn’t have as much energy as he did when he was younger. But while Yale listens to his body, he doesn’t let it dictate his ability to ride.

“I go slower,” he said. “I used to average 15, 16, 17 miles an hour. Now I average about 12 and a half. And you know what? I still enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun.”

Growing up in Flint, Michigan, Yale rode his bike everywhere. Back then, a bicycle wasn’t for fitness or fun; it was his only real means of transportation. He drifted away from it as he got older, trading in his bike for a car and eventually picking up golf as a hobby instead. It wasn’t until he moved to Virginia that he remembered that crucial part of his childhood.

“I suddenly realized that golf was not exercise,” he said. “And so I thought, gosh, why am I not riding a bike these days? I haven’t done that in ages. I wanted to go back to it, and I could see that I could go out instead of just walking around a golf course, not getting any exercise, and not particularly enjoying it, I could just go anytime I wanted to, anywhere,” Yale said. “I don’t think I’ve played a day’s golf since.”

Yale biked in Europe when he lived there. “It was a wonderful experience. Riding there, going out and visiting areas that had been built up by the Romans a couple thousand years ago, is just amazing,” he said.

He rode around Reston, familiarizing himself with the open road. Soon, he went to Leesburg, over the rolling hills of Middleburg, and all across the state. He would bike 30 or 40 miles. This continued until he was in his seventies, living a happy life with a wife and son. Biking had kept him extraordinarily healthy. “I thought I was the healthiest person in the world for a long time,” he said, “until I had a heart attack. That was a wake-up call.” But when he told his cardiologist he biked two to three times each week, the doctor said, “Make it four.”

Yale has still had his fair share of accidents due to falling off his bicycle. His first one, which was after more than 45 years of biking, broke his hip and another his collarbone.

“The biggest danger on a bicycle is if you fall, that’s obvious,” he said. “So you have to learn all the rules, you have to become skilled enough so that doesn’t happen.”

As a sightseer at heart, Yale often bikes to tourist spots to savor the sights, despite the distance from home. “It’s the idea that I rode out there on my bike, it’s something that I did myself, it has more meaning,” he said. “I can take a car out to all those things and see them, but it’s different if you’re just using yourself on something as simple as a bicycle.”

Yale is able to recognize his faults and his limits. But even as the years pile on, his passion hasn’t diminished—-instead, it’s evolved into a commitment to doing what he loves.

“I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m winding down. We don’t know what tomorrow brings, but if I’m going to bike, I just go out and do it, and every time I come back from having done it, I feel great,” he said.