Team EBC

A funny thing happened this spring. I first thought about it when Al and I started wearing matching Everglades Bicycle Club jerseys on club rides. (In a gazillion years of married life, we had never worn matching outfits before.  Never.) Then we wore the jerseys on some event rides, happily wheeling down the road in a double paceline with a lot of other people in EBC jerseys. All eras of EBC jerseys, too. After all, the club has been around since 1976. Then last Sunday on a charity ride, it hit me. We were riding with Team EBC. Everglades Bicycle Club was a club and a team.

There had been times before on rides with fellow Everglades Bicycle Club members that we acted like a team. But those times were very different from feeling like a team. Al and I joined EBC because of its rides program. We wanted to learn to ride with other people. Pacelines and all that. What sold us on the club was the support we got. They had our back. They didn't leave people on the side of the road alone with a mechanical. If you got dropped during a ride, somebody was sure to come looking for you to make sure you didn't get lost. Week by week, ride by ride, helpful gesture by helpful gesture, we slowly moved from strangers riding about in a big city to friends out pedaling and having a lot of sweaty fun.

And then there was the orange retro jersey. One Saturday the idea of our ride group having orange retro EBC jerseys caught on. It took a while to work out the kinks, but they got ordered and a lot of us bought them. Even people who weren't big on orange as a fashion statement. Seeing all the team jerseys on a group wheeling down the road did it. We looked like a team. We acted like a team. We were finally there. We felt like a team.

Everglades Bicycle Club. It's a club. It's a team. Who knew?

It's going to be fun going to big events with Team EBC.

Photo by Javier Lejardi