SEQUIM — The yellow badges of honor come out once a year for members of Sequim’s Ancient and Honorable Cyclists.
While they ride together in groups or independently each week, they officially meet once a year, said group member Tom Coonelly, 85.
To be a member, you turn 80, he said, or you’re already in your 80s and a cyclist.
This year, the Ancient and Honorable Cyclists have five new members.
In total, there are 22 riders at least 80 years old who cycle with the group, and 18 attended Sept. 12 at the annual gathering near Jamestown Beach.
Dick Gritman, a retired federal law enforcement officer who served in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, is the oldest rider at 89. He celebrated his birthday the prior week and moved to Sequim in 1998.
Gritman said he rides three days a week, weather permitting and when he’s not traveling.
“I love it,” he said of cycling.
Some riders go fast and some slow, Coonelly said of the group. The idea behind it is to encourage people to keep moving.
He said people have joined their various groups after seeing them on the road or reading about them.
Some Ancient and Honorable Cyclists are members of Spoke Folk, Women on Wheels, Easy Riders and other small to large groups that tend to meet at 9:30 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at Sequim Community Church, 950 N. Fifth Ave., before going on their separate treks.
Another group meets on Sundays near the entrance to Voice of America Park.
Coonelly said riders have recently gone to Victoria, B.C., and Port Townsend, and they’ll go “anywhere you can ride bikes.”
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
