Published: August 20, 2008 12:08 am      

73-year-old stays on course

Makes 100-plus-mile birthday bike trek

Ashland — Some people want expensive gifts for their birthdays. Some want parties and fancy dinners.

Gerald Hughes asked for one thing: To ride his bicycle for 100 miles.

“I can’t help but get older, but I refuse to grow up,” the 73-year-old Nicholas County native and Ashland resident said.

Hughes, who has hiked most of the Appalachian Trail, said his interest in cycling was reignited while vacationing with his wife, Jo.

“I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was about 14,” he said. “Then, when I was about 71, the wife and I were at Myrtle Beach and there were bicycles there for rent and I wondered if I could still ride. I tried it and I could. I liked it so I bought one.”

Usually, he rides from Ashland to a neighboring town, such as Louisa or Grayson.

“I rode 57 miles in one day last summer and was going up and down hills,” he said. “I figured if I could do that, I could probably do 100 miles and just set that as a goal.”

Hughes, along with his son, Duane, the younger Hughes’ father-in-law, Danny Gallion, and Gallion’s friend Mike Napier, left Ashland at 5 a.m. and starting riding at 7:10 a.m. on a bike path from Athens, Ohio, to Hocking College. The four rode the trail three times and then some to make 100.34 miles; they were joined by friend and relative David Crace for the last 34 miles. The experience took 11 hours and 5 minutes.

“I just wanted to see if I could do it,” Hughes said.

He said he was tired after the ride, but not as tired as one might expect.

“After we rode, we all went to a Chinese restaurant in Athens and had a nice time together eating,” he said, adding his wife and daughter, Pam Sullivan, and her husband, Dave, were at the finishing, too. “We rode on a Saturday and I got up and went to church the next morning.”

Even though he hadn’t ridden a bicycle in years, Hughes had always been very active, enjoying hikes along the Appalachian Trail and the Jenny Wiley Trail; he’s walked most all of both and some sections repeatedly because they’re his favorites.

Last year, Hughes and his son hiked in Virginia for a few days, completing 15 miles the last day.

“When you’re humping around 40 or 50 pounds in your backpack, 15 miles is a lot,” he said.

Hughes, who was the federal wage hour investigator for northeastern Kentucky for 32 years before retiring in 1993, also is a cancer survivor.

He had prostate cancer in 2000 and underwent surgery, hormone therapy and radiation treatment. He’s been cancer-free since then.

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.