Article written by Gail Green-Anderson about how she met and married her husband Rick through 5BBC

October 7, 2018

Once upon a time, two cyclists met on a ride and fell in love.

Rick and I have been married for almost nineteen years and when people ask us this question --“How did you two meet?” -- we tell them the truth: “We both went to the wrong starting point for a Five Borough Bicycle Club Ride.”  On Labor Day, 1998, Rick and I, strangers to each other, showed up at the Picnic House in Prospect Park to join a ride, led by Terry Chin, that would tour historic landmarks in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.  We waited there for a while, surprised that more people had not shown up on a holiday for what promised to be a beautiful day. 

And then the cyclists appeared. The group had met at Grand Army Plaza and were making the first stop at the Picnic House, to use the bathrooms, before continuing the ride.  

Rick and I rode together much of the day, with the group. We found we had much in common; we both worked in education and we both sang in choruses.  Most importantly, we loved cycling.  The ride made it comfortable to chat.  And while promise was in the air, each of us hesitated at the end of the ride to ask for the other’s phone number.  

There the story might have ended, but it did not. 

Six weeks later, I found a message on my voice mail at work.  It was from Rick, who remembered what I had said about my place of employment.  He asked, in that message, if I remembered him. He gave me his phone number and suggested I call back. 

I did.  

We saw each other frequently that fall.  Rick proposed on Valentine’s Day 1999 and when we were married the following November in Rick’s mom’s apartment, the wedding cake was adorned with figures of cyclists. We left our wedding in a pedicab. 

Cycling continues to bring us together and more recently, when we purchased a tandem, we found ways to get lost, to go to the wrong starting points, together.