Baldilocks offers her thoughts on one of the most patriotic demographics there is, outside of military veterans.

Taking the High Road, the Low Road and Maybe a Boulder or Two
Elizabeth Bumiller, New York Times

When George W. Bush fell off his mountain bike and banged up his face the week before last, the world took modest note of the president’s new hobby.

What it did not know was that over the past three months the 57-year-old chief executive, sidelined from the fast track with runner’s knee, has become so consumed by mountain biking that he now rides at least an hour a day on most weekends, and monitors his heart rate with a wrist strap during workouts. (Mr. Bush reported through his press secretary, Scott McClellan, that he sometimes gets above a chest-thumping 160 beats per minute.)

As it happens, a certain 60-year-old Democratic presidential candidate is a serious biker, too, although Senator John Kerry more often road bikes. Mr. Kerry sometimes takes his bike on his campaign plane, and during days off takes two-hour jaunts along the Charles River in Boston.

At first glance, this is nothing more than the story of two middle-aged jocks cycling themselves away from the advances of time. At second glance, this is an election year, and the situation is more complex.

[...]

When Mr. Bush had his spill, Mr. Kerry’s reaction rapidly coursed through political cyberspace. According to The Drudge Report, Mr. Kerry said to reporters in what he believed was an off-the-record remark, “Did the training wheels fall off?”

The Chicago Sun-Times then reported that Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Richard M. Daley - who ripped the skin off his kneecap in a bicycle accident a few years ago - had scolded Mr. Kerry for the wisecrack. “You should not wish ill upon anyone,” Mr. Daley said.

The Republican National Committee then seized on Mr. Daley’s remarks and sent them out as an attack e-mail under the headline “They said it!”

Mr. Kerry took his own fall from a bike on May 2 after he hit a patch of sand on a two-lane road in Concord, Mass. Mr. Kerry had no injuries and Mr. Bush had no reaction, at least none that we know of.

[...]

Mr. McClellan said that Mr. Bush typically mountain-bikes 15 to 20 miles for an hour or an hour and a half at a time, either at his ranch or at Camp David. This past Saturday, Mr. Bush also rode the course at a Secret Service training facility near Beltsville, Md., where he could be seen at a distance in a group of up to 10 helmeted cyclists, trailed by a van and an ambulance.

So far that is the only public sighting of the president astride a bike, making it hard to gauge his proficiency. But the Secret Service agents who ran with Mr. Bush in his 6:45-mile days are now busily training on stationary bikes in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building gym, and complaining of sore muscles after their intense workouts with Mr. Bush.

Mr. Kerry, meanwhile, has covered up to 100 miles a day on his road bike in some charity rides. “John’s a very fit rider for someone 60 years of age,” said Clint Paige, the president of Wheelworks, a company of Boston-area bike shops where Mr. Kerry buys his Serottas.

Of course, comparing road biking to mountain biking is like comparing Democrats to Republicans. “It’s a much different type of exercise,” said Stephen Madden, the editor of Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines. “Mountain biking involves a lot of up and down, and it also can involve a lot of technical expertise in jumping logs and rocks.”

Still, maybe as a sideshow to the presidential debates Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry should have a bike race, which would add new meaning to political spin.