09
Jun
Cycling club for leisurely pedallers celebrates 20 years on the road
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The district’s most relaxed cycling club celebrated its 20th anniversary at the weekend.
About 60 members of Harrogate Wheel Easy joined rides from 15 miles to more than 50 miles in the morning, and were joined in the afternoon by dozens more for a tea party at Harrogate Hockey Club.
Harrogate Wheel Easy was founded in May 2006 by Malcolm and Gia Margolis, who continue to lead the leisure cycling club to this day.
In a speech at Sunday’s event, Mr Margolis said:
Just over 20 years ago, I had what turned out to be a good idea. I knew there were lots of cycling clubs for serious and hardened cyclists but none, at least in Harrogate, for ‘P-L-U’S’ People Like Us, who didn’t necessarily regard themselves as cyclists but enjoyed going out for a leisurely pedal.
So I thought why not try setting one up? The fact we knew next to nothing about cycling didn’t seem to matter. We’d recently retired and had time for something new.
Mr Margolis, pictured left with his wife Gia, was awarded the BEM in 2018.
Thirty-five people turned up for the club’s first ride, and they’ve never looked back, attracting more members and organising numerous rides around the district, the county, the country and beyond, even organising trips to Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Greece and Spain.
In his speech, Mr Margolis said:
We’ve learned that to make a worthwhile difference you don’t need to be an expert, you need ambitions that make sense, have wide appeal, and bags of stamina. Unfortunately, my stamina ran out a while ago but thankfully Gia still has hers.
I hope that will continue, and that Wheel Easy will continue to go from strength to strength.
Mr Margolis is one of the region’s most prominent ambassadors for cycling, and was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2018 for services to cycling.
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