Bike Commuting Redskins

Really good article.

One day, as football players are wont to do, Kedric Golston and Mike Sellers began discussing their new rides inside the Redskins' locker room. Golston had ridden his bike to work on this day, and he promised to show it to Sellers when they went out for conditioning drills.

Young safety Chris Horton overheard the conversation, and wanted in on the bike viewing. Everyone likes to see a pro football player's motorcycle, right?

So then everyone went outside, and Golston proudly pointed to his Trek hybrid.

"He sees it's a 12-speed, and it crushed him," Golston recalled. "He's like, 'man, this dude's riding a bike.' "

Yes, Kedric Golston sometimes rides his bicycle to work at Redskins Park. So does Lorenzo Alexander. So have past Redskins defensive linemen like Cornelius Griffin and Renaldo Wynn. So does the AP's Joseph White, but he parks in a different lot, I think.

"Once you get past the fact that you're riding your bike to work, it's really enjoyable for us big guys," Golston told me. "A lot of times we may be able to have an extra bowl of ice cream and it wouldn't affect us."

Golston and Alexander are frequent biking partners, riding for perhaps 20 miles together on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, which is near their Northern Virginia homes. There may not be a lot of 300-pound NFL linemen on the trail, but they said no one pays them much mind.

"We talk about life, we talk about football," Alexander said.

"Sometimes we're just silent," Golston added.

"You'll see people with better bikes, older women and men, 55 or 60 years old, just flying by us," Alexander said.

"We've got the shoes, we've got the tights, we've got the biking shorts," Golston said. "We look official. Just like really big guys on bikes."

"And you save money on gas," Alexander pointed out.

Hello Bike to Work Day speakers!

Comments

[darren]

Here's another article calling for better treatment of bicyclists on ESPN.com of all places.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?id=5357586

[Michael H.]

Former Redskins coach Jim Zorn is an avid mountain bike rider as well. In a magazine interview, he said that back in his football-playing days, he and a buddy used to experiment with making their own mountain bikes, before those types of bikes were widely available.

[EStreckfuss]

Bengals linebacker Dhani Jones lives in downtown Cincinnati just a couple miles from the stadium and rides to work on a sweet Surly fixed-gear bike. Nice article about him and his bike at http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/another-ride-dhani-jones.

Maybe if the Redskins didn't play out in the boonies these guys could talk more of their teammates into riding. Really hope they do get involved in BTWD, though.

[Michael H.]

Dhani also has the popular show on the Travel Channel, "Dhani Tackles the Globe". He seeks out different sports in various countries and regions, often traditional sports that aren't in the public eye. Then he trains for a competition in that sport and does his best.

One of the episodes this year featured Dhani training for and participating in a gran fondo (mass-start amateur bike race) in Italy. This was no casual ride around the vineyards. It involved some serious climbing in the mountains. I don't remember the total distance but it took him several hours to finish the event. Dhani said that it was arguably the toughest athletic activity he had ever done.