By Tim Kelly
When you are a bike rider living or vacationing in a city deemed one of America’s “most bikeable,” well, your bike is a very important and personal thing.
An unofficial and random survey of Ocean City riders on a recent weekday morning proved that to be the case.
Drew Ritter, 12, and his twin brothers Chase and Parker, 16, use their bikes to travel to whichever surfing beach has the best wave action on a given day.
“I’ve only been in a car once all summer, to go to (a surf shop) in Margate,” said Chase.
The brothers were pedaling mechanically sound, slightly rusty bikes with a few dings and surf racks holding their boards.
They live in Catonsville, Maryland, but reside in Ocean City during the summer. When we caught up with them, the boys had just arrived at the beach at Park Place, having pedaled from their house near 1st and Asbury.
“Riding a bike is easy,” Parker said. “Driving around Ocean City and parking a car can be hard.”
It’s not unusual for people to feel such personal connections with their bicycles, said Bob Farnsworth of Tuckahoe Bike Shop – Ocean City, 1235 West Ave.
“The trick is to find the type of bike that works best for the person for how they are going to ride in Ocean City,” Farnsworth said. “If they might have (a 10-speed) bike they use at home over more hilly terrain, and they bring it here and their bike isn’t so comfortable riding it five miles on the Boardwalk.”
George Flowers said he “loves” his bike, which he won in a raffle at a golf tournament approximately 15 years ago.
Like the Ritter boys’ rides, Flowers’ bike showed some rust but pedaled smoothly as he maneuvered it from his condo building parking lot to the Boardwalk.
“I’ve put in a tremendous amount of hard work into improving this bike and making it even better,” said Flowers, with tongue in cheek.
The improvements included new high-rise handlebars and a coffee cup holder. “It’s pretty much perfect now,” Flowers said, laughing.
Farnsworth said a large segment of Ocean City bike riders tend to use them for pleasure riding and to ride around town. Others who work at local businesses commute to work on them. For the most part, Ocean City people aren’t riding competitively or specifically for fitness. As a result, wide, padded seats, upright handlebars, fat tires and long frames are the order of the day.
“The fatter the tires and the longer the frame, the more comfortable the ride,” Farnsworth said. “We try to guide people on what is the best fit for them. Most people have had four or five bikes in their lifetime, but we have sold thousands of bikes. We are pretty experienced at matching people up with the best bike for them. It’s usually about stability and comfort, not speed and fitness.”
One of the faster-growing bike categories in Ocean City is the electric, pedal-assisted bicycle. They pedal like a normal bike, but when approaching a hill such as the 9th Street Causeway, a touch of a button turns on the electric motor to propel the bike.
These bikes extend the range people can travel and allow those with physical challenges to move around more freely.
Bill Parker is a 90-year-old Ocean City resident who recently stopped driving and has found his electric pedal-assist bike to be the answer to remaining mobile.
“I call it my Wawa Express,” he said, noting he uses the bike to get back and forth from his house at 3rd and Central Avenue to his favorite convenience store.
“I stick to the alleys, mostly,” Parker said.
“An electric bike is a great alternative,” said Farnsworth. “You don’t have to give up your (car’s) parking spot, you can park the bike anywhere, and you’re going to arrive where you’re going pretty quickly. If you were on (a conventional bike) you probably wouldn’t ride from (downtown) to a beach on 44th Street. But if you had an electric bike, you might.”
In front of Ove’s Beach Grill, Andy McPeak of South Logan Township, Salem County, was loading son Leo, who will be 3 years old in November, into a child seat mounted over the rear tire of his rented bike.
“We are able to spend time together, enjoy the beach and the Boardwalk and get around town easily,” McPeak said.
For Kim Pheil of Quakertown Pa., and Beth Gerhart of West Grove, Pa., use of bikes was included with the apartment they rented for their vacation. Both women ride bikes at home as well, they said, and they were thankful to have access to the house bikes and leave their own at home.
Beth used a basket mounted to the back fender for shopping trips, and Kim used her basket below the handlebars as a bike seat for her miniature poodle.
“The bikes are just so much more convenient,” Beth said. “(It can be a hassle) to go anywhere around here in a car, but if you need to get to the Boardwalk or the stores or pretty much wherever, just grab the bike and go. Simple.”
Ocean City, which boasts bike lanes, a bike path and a Boardwalk where biking is allowed from the pre-dawn hours until 12 noon, is arguably one of New Jersey’s most bikeable towns. There are bike racks at the entrances to many beaches and near many of the stores along Asbury Avenue, at schools and at the Community Center, to name a few locations.
As a result, the sale of bikes and the use of bikes might be at an all-time high in Ocean City.
“We have about 250 bikes used by the residents of this building,” said John Miller, the ubiquitous “Bike Man” at the Gardens Plaza condominium at Park Place and the Boardwalk.
“We probably have 50 more bikes than we did a few years ago,” he said.
The building used to have one overcrowded bike storage room until the summer of 2017, when two more were added.
“Bikes are a big deal here,” Miller said. “Early in the season I do a lot of cleaning up and tuning up. Later in the summer we make sure (residents) can get their bikes quickly and store them safely.”
Riding bikes safely is another issue in a town where traffic congestion is the norm during the summer months.
“We make an effort to educate customers on how to ride their bikes safely around town,” Farnsworth said.
Doug Eberly is one resident who is out for a five-mile ride virtually every day before 5:30 a.m.
Eberly said that on most days, he watches the sun rise and waves to individual members of a small group of early bird riders he often encounters. He won’t take his bike out in the rain or snow, but every day possible he is out there.
Despite such prolific use, his black one-speed cruiser is almost free of rust.
“When I bought it, I was told this was as close to a rust-free bike as you could buy, and that has proven to be true,” Eberly said.
He noted he has his bike tuned up every eight weeks or so, which keeps everything running smoothly.
In addition to the health benefits of riding, Eberly said, he sees things on his bike he never could from a car or on foot.
“I have seen foxes up close, rabbits and other wildlife,” he said. “Ocean City is just glorious, and riding a bike is one of the best ways to enjoy it.”
