Will She Ride Home?

Today I read a news story that made me think of someone about whom I wrote two years ago.

Then I opened my page for this blog and found that someone had left a new comment on that post.

The subject of that post was Mary Jane "Miji" Reoch, arguably the first of a generation of American female cyclists that would dominate their field during the 1970s and 1980s--and put the US on the world's racing map for the first time since the era of the six-day races.

So what brought her to mind?  Well, it was something a political figure in New Zealand did four decades after "Miji."

Well, they've both won races. Except that the ones Julie Anne Genter weren't in the peloton, or on the track or singletrack.  Rather, the races she won were decided in voting booths and ballot boxes.

Now, when I say "won", I don't mean it in the way one wins a head-to-head election in the US.  Instead, as I understand, in New Zealand's system, members of parliament are elected from lists of candidates and the ones with the most votes gain parliamentary seats.  Some of them, anyway:  Some seats are awarded proportionally by parties (New Zealanders get two votes, one for a candidate and one for a party.) and a few seats are reserved for Maori residents.

So, you can say that she won the right to become a member of Parliament, a post she holds along with those of Minister for Women as well as Associate Minister for Health and Associate Minister for Transport. All of that, one imagines, wouldn't leave her much time to train. But, still, she cycles---which brings me to what she has in common with Miji.

Well, they both continued to ride during their pregnancies.  In Miji's time, doctors were still counseling pregnant women to forego all physical activity, so continuing her training regimen was still fairly radical in the 1970s.  Today, of course, doctors are more likely to encourage pregnant women to exercise as much as they can, even if they have to modify whatever regiments they followed before.

Which brings me to something that was considered really "far-out" (to use a '70's expression) in Miji's time, and is still seen as fairly unusual today: Both women rode their bikes to the hospital where they would deliver their newborns. Yesterday, Julie Anne, who is 42 weeks pregnant, arrived at the Auckland hospital where she will be induced.  Once her child arrives, she will become the second New Zealand government official to give birth this year, following Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in June.

Oh, I can offer one other cycling-related connection between Miji and Julie Anne:  They were both modest about cycling to their deliveries.  The New Zealander demurred that her route was "mostly downhill."  Donald Huschle, who left the comment on my post about Miji, recalled that, whenever anyone mentioned her ride to the delivery room, she would point out, "Well, I didn't ride home."

Now, if Julie Anne Genter--who was born and raised in the USA--can ride home, she'll've done something neither Miji nor Jacinda did.  As if she hasn't already done enough things that most people don't do!

Borne--And Born--Out Of The Fire

Sometimes natural--or human-caused--disasters can make it impossible to drive a car or truck.  Roads might be impassable, gasoline supplies could be low or non-existent or wind, rain or other conditions might reduce visibility or eliminate it altogether.

During such crises, some people ride bicycles to stores that might still be open,  to check up on relatives, friends or neighbors or even to rescue or transport victims.  Last month, after Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast of Texas, Jeff Whitehead pedaled 300 miles from his home in Laguna Park, a town near the center of the Lone Star state, to the coastal community of Rockport "just to do whatever I could to help," he explained.  He could not have made that trip in his car due to the destruction wrought by the storm.

Other times, however, it's not the disaster itself that makes driving impossible:  it's, ironically, other drivers.  A mass exodus from a storm, wildfire or other catastrophe can lead to huge traffic jams on roads leading out of the afflicted area.  That is what happened to Charity Ruiz when she evacuated her Santa Rosa, California home in the wake of wildfires that have singed their way through the northern California wine country.

The traffic tie-up stopped her in the middle of a street on fire.  She feared, not only for her own life, but for those of her two daughters--and yet-unborn baby son.

Yes, she is pregnant.  In fact, she is due to have a C-section next week. (That is on hold, because the fires closed the hospital in which she was scheduled for the procedure.) That makes what she did to get herself and her children out of harm's way all the more heroic.

She ran back to her house and grabbed her bicycle, which is equipped with a toddler trailer.   With her two girls in the trailer, she pedaled through the fire.  

Her greatest worry, she said, was tipping over and falling.  "I just kept yelling at the girls, 'Tell me if you're OK'," she recalled.

After riding for a while, a Good Samaritan in a Jeep drove them to a friend's house, where they were reunited with Charity's husband Mike.

The family is now staying with relatives in San Jose.  And one day, Charity Ruiz will be able to tell her son of all that she did to bring him into this world!