Cycling can change your life

Meet Tom: cycle tourer, trail leader and champion for ‘non-traditional’ cyclists

I am pleased to introduce you to Tom Bilcze, Ohio resident and cycle trail enthusiast. I first came across Tom through his Substack newsletter, Tom on the Trails. His is a truly inspiring story of how cycling can transform your life, and I’m grateful to Tom for letting me share it with you.

Photo supplied by Tom Bilcze

What prompted you to get into cycling?

In 2005 I had a heart attack and triple coronary bypass surgery with two subsequent surgeries that resulted in a 17-day hospital stay, primarily in cardiac intensive care. I knew I had to change my life. Over the next three years, I struggled. But in 2008 I had bariatric surgery and was motivated to be successful. I began exercising. After a year of feeling that walking, treadmills, and so on were not motivating me enough, a friend suggested I try cycling. I did and it became my passion.

How did you find getting started?

A friend told me about a nearby trail that he loved. That summer I told my husband we were going on a bike ride. We had bikes hanging in the garage that only came down on beach vacations. We headed to the trail, and I was instantly hooked. I was amazed these trails existed and how many people were walking, running, walking dogs, enjoying nature, and cycling. After that 8-mile ride, I began cycling two to three times a week throughout the year.

Had you been a cyclist before your heart surgery?

When I was a kid, I lived in the country, about a mile out of the city. My sister and I would cycle occasionally, or I’d cycle with neighbourhood kids. But then I kind of lost it. I bought a bike in my mid-30s, intending to bike but I never really did. The only cycling I did before I got serious about it was at the beach or in resorts on the mountain bikes we had. So, it was kind of odd when I decided to take them down from hanging in the garage and do something else.

How has your cycling evolved since then?

During my first year of cycling, I had regular visits with my bariatric surgeon. He told me about two other patients who began cycling. I approached them at a support group meeting and suggested we ride. They loved the idea. We soon found ourselves cycling together and bringing more people into our little group, which grew to 12 people. At the end of the year, we celebrated and decided we needed to form a bike club that focused on health and getting the non-traditional person cycling. We did that in 2010 and the group exploded and continues even bigger today.

That led me to longer rides and bike touring. In 2016, I cycled the Ohio to Erie Trail with the trail’s charity ride of 326 miles over seven days. I loved it. I saw more trails across the state and loved their mission to complete a trail across the state of Ohio. When I retired in 2017, I joined the local rail trail friends’ group and became their treasurer. I cycled the trail again in 2018 and was asked to be on the trail’s board. In 2020 I became the marketing committee chair and in 2023 I became the president.

I was also active in a bicycle cooperative from 2012 to 2016. I loved their mission of making cycling accessible to all and focusing on putting more people on bikes. They strengthened my motto that cycling is for everyone.

What sort of cycling do you enjoy?

I love trails, primarily rail trails. I also cycle roads but not as often. I am a casual cyclist and cycle about 12 to 14 miles per hour [19 to 23 kilometres per hour]. I generally cycle 20 to 40 miles [32 to 65 kilometres] on a ride. I love bicycle touring. It has been part of my life since 2011, when I did my first week-long tour on the Great Allegheny Passage and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Trail. I have cycled the route five more times since then. I love the unspoiled nature it passes through.

When I retired, I made it a goal to cycle in Europe. Other than during the pandemic, I’ve cycled two to three weeks in Europe every year. For my first two ventures, I used organised tours. The first was in 2017 when I cycled western Hungary from Vienna, Austria. I come from a Swiss-Hungarian background, and it gave me insight into my father’s background and culture. The second tour was in the Czech Republic with a little bit of Austria.

Then I got a little more adventurous and did a self-guided tour in 2019 and really liked it. I revisited my mother's birthplace when I cycled across Switzerland’s Mitterland, and I also visited Austria and Germany on this trip. These are my most memorable international tours.

I usually look for a tour that's maybe two weeks long and then add on to it and just explore. I like to cycle, but I also want to learn about places. I haven't scheduled a trip to Europe this year because the one I wanted to do got cancelled.

Photo supplied by Tom Bilcze

Have you got any other trips planned?

I want to cycle the Ohio to Erie Trail by myself. I like solo touring and haven’t done it on that trail yet. I’ve been about four times with groups, but I believe as President I need to do a solo trip. I plan to do that in August. I’ve done it with a regular bike before, but I’m going to try an e-bike this time. I have people asking me questions about touring by e-bike, so I’m going to experience it for myself.

My bucket list is to cycle the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, and England. A friend recently told me about an amazing tour she cycled in your country. She was amazed by the beauty and mountains. It was an e-bike tour that took people into the natural areas of New Zealand. I have never ventured that far. I think it's time.

What kind of bike do you ride?

I’ve got a variety of bikes I use. When I bicycle tour, I ride a Kona Sutra. I’ve got a Felt 6061 Ultralight road bike. And I bought an e-bike a few years ago because I was curious. It’s a Serial 1 bike built by Harley Davidson. A lot of people aren't familiar with that. Harley-Davidson tapped into its engineering expertise and collaborated with technology partners to launch its e-bikes.

I ride my road bike as much as I can. I live in an area where there are a lot of paved trails. I’m very fortunate living in central Ohio – we’re on the Ohio to Erie Trail, with 33 miles of the trail within my county, and a lot of intersecting trails nearby. Much of Ohio was an old industrial centre, and when the manufacturing left, the railroads were abandoned. There's something like 1300 miles of rail trail developed in the state of Ohio alone.

The country roads here are easy to bike too. I'm not a gravel cyclist at all. If I was, I would have a lot of opportunities in my neighbourhood.

Can you tell me more about your work with the Ohio to Erie Trail?

I never intended to lead the organisation, let alone be the president. I became very active in advocating for the trail. In 2022, the president was resigning to pursue other interests, which left the position open. Several board members encouraged me to assume the role. I gave it thought and agreed.

I come from an IT strategic planning and architecture work life. I saw the trail’s lack of strategy in their work. The trail is 90% complete with the remaining 10% in grasp. I began leading the board in the direction of revisiting the mission and vision. More importantly, the board needed strategies and goals to move forward. I am happy to say the board has worked collaboratively to update the mission and vision and is now deep in finalising the strategies. I feel it’s quite an accomplishment leading them to this point.

What do you love about the trail? Why should others love it too?

The premier long distance trail in the United States is a combination of two trails: the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Trail, which is 186 miles from Washington DC to Cumberland MD, and the Great Allegheny Passage, which is 150 miles from Cumberland to Pittsburgh. That’s probably the number one - it’s extremely scenic with a lot of American history.

But what’s different about the Ohio to Erie Trail is that it passes through the three largest cities in the state of Ohio - Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland - and you can quickly be in the country. People can get a small-town experience and a big city experience. The Ohio to Erie Trail is also unique in that it’s largely paved, for about 260 miles, and then 60 miles are a canal towpath.

The ride changes as it goes diagonally across the state. It enters in the Ohio River valley in Cincinnati and climbs to a flat farming area. As you travel past the centre of the state it starts to roll a little. Heading north, the trail passes through Amish country, which is hilly and has a double-width trail that was built so buggies and horses can use one side and cyclists and pedestrians use another. Once you reach the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Northeast Ohio, it’s a totally different experience transforming from paved trail and farmland to biking along rivers and canal on a limestone towpath. As it reaches its end on Lake Erie, it passes through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is the second most visited national park in the country.

I live outside of Mount Vernon, a town of about 22,000 people close to Columbus. If you're familiar with the term ‘trail town’, it's a town that has very much embraced trails. The old railroad depot is beautifully done, and the town caters to cyclists, and it’s a highlight for people riding the Ohio to Erie Trail. The state is seeing a rebirth of all these little towns along the trail.

There are rail trails that intersect – for example, there's one I use nearby that passes through a college town, a city, and a rural town. They’re about 10 to 11 miles apart so a lot of people from urban areas like Columbus like biking here. One of the United States' largest charity rides is for a cancer hospital. It's called Pelotonia and has as many as 7,000+ cyclists over the two-day event. It's pretty amazing and they raised $13 million in 2023. It usually goes by my house so I see a lot of people training for that ride cycle by. I live in a very scenic rural area.

Photo supplied by Tom Bilcze

What other cycling-related activities are you involved in?

I am the Camp Services Director for the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, GOBA. This is a week-long circular ride stopping at four small towns and cities in the state of Ohio. I work with the towns, health department, and other members to design their campgrounds to accommodate 1,000 – 1,500 cyclists. I arrive the day before the cyclists and lay out the campsites and facilities. I coordinate shower trucks, luggage trucks, porta-toilets, vendors, and so on.

I was asked to do it because I’m a good planner and my IT job involved a lot of facilitating so it kind of fits me. It's a challenging job and I miss not biking it, but it’s got easier since I took it on in 2019. This may be my last year doing it though – not because I’m tired of it, but because it takes a lot of time and there are other things I want to do.

I am also on the marketing committee for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission Central Ohio Greenways. The organization seeks to make trails accessible to all, connect communities in the region, and connect trails to communities and businesses. Their regional trail vision is to add more than 500 miles of trails to the existing 230-mile network across seven Central Ohio counties.

I’m mostly in an advisory role but get involved in initiatives as President of the Ohio to Erie Trail. For example, we worked with Rails to Trails Conservancy (a charitable foundation that promotes rail trails) to co-sponsor an initiative to capitalise on economic development opportunities in trail towns in central Ohio. Right now, we’re doing work on comprehensive wayfinding to entice people to better get to neighbourhoods, businesses and wherever they need to go.

What are your tips or advice for anyone looking to get into recreational cycling or touring?

Never, never let anyone demean your style of cycling. I took a bicycle training class that encouraged people to cycle to work and for errands. The leader’s words “if you ride a bike, you are a cyclist” are so true. I try to get people to understand that. It is about finding your tribe. There are more people than you know out there who want to cycle the way you do and who also want to find their tribe. It is not about speed and miles. It is about the smiles and the experience.

I very much advocate for people who aren't traditional cyclists. I learned that from my bike co-operative days. I learned that when I was losing weight. When I’ve hosted tours on our trail, I always stayed at the back. I like to support the person who struggles to achieve and to show that the ride or tour can be done by everybody.

Any final words?

I celebrate the Tour de France cyclist. I celebrate the person who cycles three miles to work or market. The bike is a powerful tool. It can change your life. It can help you change the lives of others.