UNR student immerses himself in world of cycling
Almost nothing can stop 20-year-old Jeff Fiddler from riding his bike. Not riding through snow, not a car backing into him, not hitchhiking back from Pyramid Lake in riding cleats and spandex shorts after suffering a flat tire.
“Only an injury that would make riding impossible,” he said. “Like not having a kneecap or a leg.”
Fiddler has been riding bikes for about two and a half years. He got interested in cycling the summer before his freshman year of college.
“I was really overweight my entire life and my friend, Matt, had a garage full of bikes so I made him give me one,” Jeff Fiddler said. “I didn’t think about weight loss, but mostly extending my life.”
Fiddler was hooked as soon as he started riding that first hand-me-down bike.
He first started riding around his neighborhood, then one day decided to bike to his job, about a mile away. It was hard, but he kept doing it and it kept getting easier. Eventually he started riding to the University of Nevada, Reno for his classes, which was about five miles away from his house at the time. Fiddler kept doing it because he knew it was good for his health.
“And of course, there were some girls who said I couldn’t do it,” he said.
He ended up dropping 100 lbs from his 250-pound frame, almost as much as supermodel Kate Moss weighs, and now only uses his car about once a week for groceries. Otherwise, for his job at Starbucks, his computer engineering classes at UNR, or anywhere else he wants to go, Fiddler bikes.
Fiddler enjoys biking because of the freedom it brings. He can park wherever he wants on or off campus and he has a shared interest to strike up conversations with other cyclists.
“There’s no reason not to ride,” he said. “You really get a sense of being wherever you are. If you’re riding through downtown Reno, you’re really looking at it, not looking at it through your windows. I like being in traffic and feeling independent and really aware.”
In the spokes of the back wheel on Fiddler’s silver Rush Hour bike are two laminated cards, one of an Indian god and the other of a robot. The cards are a mark of participation in a race and a point of pride for Fiddler.
The two races Fiddler participated in were alleycat races. An alleycat race is where riders start at one point and snake through the city, making the race as much about knowledge of the city and planning as about speed.
One race had a mock-delivery system and the other involved riders building a robot costume throughout the race.
Fiddler liked these races. They are part of the biking community he enjoys being a part of.
“The culture is definitely everywhere,” Fiddler said. “Once I started doing it and thinking about it, it definitely opened up a new world for me.”
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