Parade Magazine

You Never Have To Ride Alone

By Bill Donahue
Published: June 27, 2004

"I used to be a little hoodlum,” Nissy Cobb admits. “I skipped school all the time. I got in fights. I never listened to John.”

“John” is John Benenate, founder of b.i.k.e. (Bicycles and Ideas for Kids’ Empowerment), an after-school program in Portland, Ore., that turns disadvantaged youngsters into disciplined cyclists who stay in school.

Twelve years ago, Benenate was a pre-law student with dreams of one day working for an organization like Amnesty International. He also was a free-spirited member of the Portland State University bicycle team.

Then, one night when he was 26, his life changed in a tragic instant. Benenate plunged 18 feet off a deck with a missing railing at an Oregon ski resort and broke his back. Suddenly, his cycling days were over. No more racing. No more pedaling through the streets of Portland as a bike messenger, riding in traffic while singing Clash lyrics. Benenate was now a paraplegic.

“Everyone wanted me to walk again,” he recalls. “And I tried. But I couldn’t.” Still, Benenate tearfully vowed to his teammates from his hospital bed: “I’m staying in the sport.”

He became Portland State’s cycling director. “That was fun,” Benenate, 38, now says of those days, “but it was not enough.” Recalling Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, he says he knew he had to do something more. So in 1995, a year before he left his university job, Benenate launched b.i.k.e. out of a Portland storefront.

In a sport dominated by well-heeled gearheads, b.i.k.e. is a rare and decidedly funky bicycling squad that stresses education. It consists of 20 inner-city kids with more than 40 volunteer cyclist/mentors, and Benenate is their coach.

“b.i.k.e. is community,” says Benenate. “We sweat it out on 50-mile rides, and then we help the kids with homework. We yell at them when they’re running around in the cold with no shoes on. This isn’t just a team —it’s la famiglia.” The b.i.k.e. squad also is among the top-ranked teams in Oregon.

Nissy Cobb, 17, and her sister, Angel, 16, are two of the squad’s success stories. In five years, they have become state cycling champs in their age group. But it could have turned out differently.

Last year, tragedy struck the girls when they returned home one night to find their trailer in flames with their mother, Denise, inside. The Cobb sisters, already destitute, now were orphans. The squad came to their rescue. Benenate and b.i.k.e.’s supporters helped the girls with transportation and living arrangements until they could find a home.

The team is now training for Portland’s Cyclo-cross Nationals, to be held in December. They will put in up to 200 miles a week, with Benenate coaching from the window of his battered Subaru, leading them through the streets and bellowing praise.

“Allez!, allez!, allez!,” he shouts in French. “Go!” Nissy rolls her eyes, then rides until she’s right on his fender.

“I feel like my mom’s looking down on us,” she says. “I want her to see me do good.” So Nissy keeps on as Benenate yells, her head down, pedaling hard as if her life depends on it.