Pennswood Village is a retirement community in Newtown on the edge of the George School campus.
Its website reads “Set in the midst of a naturally beautiful 82-acre campus, Pennswood Village is a diverse, non-profit, continuing care retirement community in Bucks County. Guided by Quaker values, residents enrich mind, body and spirit in an exceptional place of true hospitality. Here, residents share a fellowship of inspiration, a thirst for knowledge and a love of activity.”
The “love of activity” was in full view recently. The Pennswood Village community may be full of retired doctors, musicians, entrepreneurs, lawyers, professors, businesspeople, non-profit leaders, et. al. but there are also some serious athletes in the mix.
At least, when it comes to competing in worldwide cyber cycle competitions. The International Cyber Cycle contest recently completed over a four-week period involved 217 retirement communities worldwide and 655 riders from as far away as Hong Kong, California, Finland, Canada, Texas, and Singapore.
Of those riders, 39 were from Pennswood Village. And the local athletes roared into third place out of 217 who participated.
The Pennswood team racked up an impressive 1,474 miles in eight days of riding cyber cycles in the Pennswood Fitness Center (two days a week over four weeks)! They even got better as they went along; 211 miles in week one, 232 miles in week two, 474 miles in week three and 557 miles in the final week.
In the first week, six riders surpassed 10 miles pedaled in two days. The second week there were nine riders who accomplished this. In week three, there were 15 and by week four there were 19 riders who traveled “virtually” more than 10 miles.
Leading the Pennswood pack was rider, Jim Michener, with 294 miles to place him among the leaders worldwide! Other top local riders were Becky Popik (208), Richard Coe (139), Carolyn Michener (84), Margaret Carlough (76), Norval Reece (52), Veronica Stoker (51), Claire Arnold (50), Anne Coe (44), Linda Busz (40), and Carol Huntley-Jones (40).
These Pennswood Villagers may be in a retirement community but to pedal their way into third place among 217 other communities worldwide is anything but “retiring.”
PHOTO CAP: Claire Arnold and Jim Michener on the cyber cycles