If it were up to Octavio Orduño, he'd still
be cruising Long Beach on a two-wheeled bicycle. But his wife insisted
he get a tricycle. The city wants to make him an ambassador for cycling:
'He's our poster boy for healthy, active living around here.'
By Esmeralda Bermudez, Los Angeles Times
March 14, 2011
It's time to ride, but Octavio Orduño, stubborn as ever, won't put on his glasses.
His wife, Alicia, insists: "But you can't see without them."
"No," he tells her. "I don't want to."
Then he starts to head off, on his way.
If it were up to Orduño, he would still be cruising the streets of Long Beach on a two-wheeler.
But a few years back, Alicia insisted he add another wheel and get a
tricycle. After all, he was 100 and beginning to lose his balance.
He turns 103 on Monday, so he's probably the oldest cyclist in Long
Beach. The city, which wants to make him an ambassador for biking, likes
to call him "the oldest in the world."
Orduño lives half a block from the beach. Nearly every day, he toddles
from his third-floor condo to the garage where he keeps his red Torker
tricycle. On it, he pedals around the neighborhood — to the park, the
beach and the farmers market — in a ritual honed over nearly 40 years.
Not long ago, the city's bike coordinator, a gregarious, gray-haired
Texan named Charles Gandy, took notice. He befriended Orduño and shared
his story online, posting two videos
of him coasting down the bike lanes, propped up by his self-installed
blue velvet backrest. And that's only the start of Gandy's plan, if the
old man is game. He'd like to have him cut the ribbon at bike-friendly
ceremonies and appear in television and radio ads.
"He's our poster boy for healthy, active living around here," Gandy
said, just what people need "to shake themselves out of a rut."
Orduño loves the attention. But his riding around town isn't any sort of campaign.
"It keeps me going," he said. "And it's better than sitting in the den all day watching cars go by."
Alicia is right. With his glasses off, it's clear he can't see too much at all.
No matter. He knows the six-block route to Bixby Park by feel. Aside
from a few potholes that rock his hunched frame and make him yell
"Ayyyy!," the voyage is smooth.
"I can ride this bike all day long," he says as the world whizzes by in a
blur: the grind of lawn mowers, the sour smell of garbage, two growling
pit bulls — one black, one beige — and a pretty girl in a flowery
skirt.
The retired aerospace mechanic can't recall how old he was when he first
started riding. He just remembers it took him a long time to persuade
his father to buy him a bike.
The two used to argue all the time over school, which Orduño found
boring and pointless. So at 16 he ran away, hopping freight trains from
Oregon to Wisconsin to Chicago. For years, he says, he labored on farms
and laid railroad track, stashing his cash in an old tobacco tin.
When the Great Depression struck in 1929, the trains he rode filled up
with desperate men — former doctors and lawyers who had lost it all.
His first marriage lasted 20 years and gave him four children — three
boys, one girl. With Alicia, he had two more girls. Next year, the
couple will celebrate their 60th anniversary.
His kids, grandkids and great-grandkids are spread across California and as far afield as New Mexico, Indiana and Missouri.
A few times a year, his son Eddie, 79, visits from his home north of Fresno. At the sight of him, Orduño lights up.
"I don't know how many days he has left, how many months, how many years," Eddie said of his father. "But he's had a full life."
Alicia wants him to keep having one. There are days she has to scold
him. When he turned 100 and the state took away his driver's license,
she thought he'd be safer. But he returns from his tricycle rides
scraped up from falls.
Not long ago, on his way out of the garage, his foot slipped going
uphill and he flipped over. His face hit the concrete. The bike landed
on his leg. He lay on the ground for half an hour before a neighbor came
to his rescue.
Once, he and the tricyclecame home in a police car.
"That time, I thought I was clear, so I let it roll," he says. "I think I
was going about 30 miles an hour when I went over the curb and some
guys came to help me."
A day or two later, he was back on the street, "like nothing ever happened," Alicia said.
A few minutes into his ride to Bixby Park, the grassy knolls come into view and Orduño proudly calls out: "We're here!"
He waits in a driveway for the light to turn green so he can cross busy
Ocean Boulevard. Just then, a giant Suburban comes up behind him,
waiting for him to move. But Orduño, caught uphill without momentum,
can't get his ride to budge.
The driver takes in the scene and laughs.
"Puchenlo! Puchenlo!" he teases out the window. Somebody push him!
At the park, Orduño speeds past the grass and the picnic benches, where seniors lounge in the sun.
He goes straight to the back, to his favorite place: the skateboarding zone.
There, on an open stretch of concrete, young guys with shaggy hair and
saggy pants zoom around, grinding the ground with ollies and flips.
Orduño hits his brakes and takes it all in. His mouth drops open in a smile.
They return the favor, singing his praises.
"Hey, sweet ride, man!"
"Yo, check him out! He's down."
Nick Tarrant, a 21-year-old with a stubbly goatee and a low-slung action
bike, asks him his name, practically yelling so Orduño can hear him.
"Hey, it's OK. I'm deaf too," Tarrant tells him, pointing to his own
earpieces. The two talk bikes and hearing aids, and then Orduño says
goodbye.
He is ready to ride home, to Alicia and his usual dinner of beans, brown rice and vegetables.
"Sometimes," Orduño says, as he reaches his block, "I feel stronger than the year before."
With his birthday approaching, there's been talk of getting him an
electric wheelchair. Alicia thinks it will make it easier for her
husband to get around.
But Orduño has grown attached to his three-wheeler and has no plans to give it up.
"Why would I?" he said. As for the wheelchair, "I think she can use it and follow me when I ride."