2b
• June 29, 2017 • Oceana’s Herald-Journal
Sports
10-day, 1,000-mile bicycle journey ends in Pentwater for retired track coach By Andy Roberts Herald-Journal Writer
• Photos courtesy of Bill Gallagher
Above, Bill Gallagher poses for a photo with his trusty bicycle while taking a break from a 10-day, 1,000-plus mile journey at Pickles Restaurant in Brimley. At right, Gallagher’s bike sits on an overpass above I-75 on the Mackinaw Trail during another short break in the ride. Gallagher, age 60, bicycled from his home in Ashland, Ohio, around the state of Michigan before stopping in Pentwater Sunday.
“I refuse to grow up. You can’t make me.” There’s probably no simpler way of describing what motivated 60-year-old Bill Gallagher to pedal over 1,000 miles in 10 days around Michigan this last week than those words from Gallagher himself. Gallagher arrived in Pentwater Sunday evening fresh off accomplishing that exact feat, one that would be wildly impressive for someone less than half his age. Starting at his home in Ashland, Ohio, on June 16, the retired Ashland University track coach rode just over 110 miles per day for nine consecutive days, actually passing the 1,000-mile mark on day nine, before ending his trip with a short jaunt to Pentwater Sunday from his starting point in Ludington. In Pentwater, he met his wife, Deb, who came over to pick him up — using a more conventional mode of transport, a car — after visiting her family in Holt. Neither Gallagher is from Pentwater or from Oceana County, but the couple has visited in the past and loves the area. The choice of Pentwater as the final stop on Bill’s trip mostly came about by accident, simply the most logical nearby stop after his originally projected 1,000-mile mark. “It’d be a nice place to stop to end the madness,” Gallagher laughed. “It just so happened, in the planning stages, that 1,000 miles hit at Pentwater.
Some friends turned us on to it a few years ago and we liked it. You have a great little town there.” Gallagher coached the Division II Ashland University track teams for 25 years, retiring in 2005, and is regarded as a legend there for building the program into a powerhouse, so he’s never lacked for motivation to stay in shape. It wasn’t until six years ago, though, that he was turned on to bicycling as a way to do it, a move that he jokingly referred to as heresy in the world of runners. “Running, as you get older, it’s tougher on your knees and hips,” Gallagher said. “You don’t get the same gravitational stress from cycling. I think it’s a better return on your exercising investment. You can really go places, take destination rides.”
“Why not?”
Cycling is far from the first sport Gallagher has tried to conquer. He and wife Deb, who mirrored her husband’s career by coaching track and cross-country at Ashland High School prior to retirement, were so devoted to water skiing in their youth (particularly Deb) that Gallagher himself actually built a lake for the purposes of water skiing. “We started getting into water-ski tournaments (when we were younger),” Gallagher said. “The more you ski, the more you knew you didn’t know anything, so I decided, I’m going to build my own lake. We bought a house no one wanted and renovated it. I was turned down by six banks, and we literally built a tournamentquality water ski setup. That’s
1,000 miles continued on 3b