POTUS goes for a ride

Ever since the White House announced in December, 2003, that the President's doctors had ordered him to stop running, and I learned that Trek CEO John Burke, a member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, had given Bush a zooty full-suspension Fuel, bicycling and Mountain Bike have been nagging the White House press office for an invitation to check out the President's velochops.

Bush's fitness has never been in question. The President has publicly noted that he kicked an addiction to alcohol with an addiction to exercise. His results have been impressive, at least for a 59-year-old guy with a stressful job. Bush's prowess as a runner (20:29 for a 2002 5k) suggested the presence of a big engine, and the results of his most recent physical placed him in the 99th percentile of fitness for his age--his resting pulse of 47 would be the envy of any Cat 1 road racer. . . .

"Like a lot of Baby Boomers, my knees gave out" from running, potus tells our group in a pre-ride chat. "I like to stay fit. I think you can do your job better if you're fit." Bush says he was drawn to mountain biking because of "the exhilaration," because "it brings out the child in you" and because "I like to get my heart rate up." He sports a top-of-the-line Polar heart rate monitor and--a first, as far as I can tell, for the non-gravity set--a mouthguard, and explains that the rips in his baggies are a souvenir of July's "Scottish incident" at the G8 summit at St. Andrews, in which he lost control on wet pavement and took out a bobby in the process. He says he'll never be seen in "form-fitting Lycra" and that his newly installed clipless pedals have given him a 15-percent increase in efficiency. He says he'd like to road bike, but that the Secret Service can't find the 40 to 60 miles of secure roads he'd need to get his workout. "Lance Armstrong gave me a road bike," he notes, referring to one of the Treks that Armstrong rode in the 2001 Tour de France, and which should be in a museum. "I hook that up to a stationary wheeling thing. I put it on Air Force One. It's a pretty neat feeling to be heading to wherever and to ride for an hour."