It’s easy to feel left behind after putting on a few years and a lot more pounds.
Joints creak. Muscles ache. You’re not as lithe and athletic as you once were.
That’s where a group called Maumee Valley Adventurers comes in.
It’s far from being a competitive group.
There’s no guilt or shame if you’ve been a couch potato longer than you want to admit.
Maumee Valley Adventurers is a group that, according to its leadership, fills a niche for people who really want to start resuming some form of healthy, outdoor activity without the anxiety that comes from trying to keep up with others who have been taking exercise more seriously in recent years and are used to more vigorous workouts.
Keith Webb, the group’s current vice president and a past president, said one of the its activities is a light, casual bicycle ride to and from a local coffee shop each Saturday morning that is “specifically designed for people whose bikes have been in the garage for three to five years.”
“It can be intimidating to go on a group ride,” said Mr. Webb, an application engineer also is affiliated with a bicycle education group called We Are Traffic. “The Saturday morning coffee rides are specifically geared to help people get started.”
Bicycling is only part of what Maumee Valley Adventurers promotes. It also features organized hikes in area parks, travel talks, and other activities.
It strives to keep its activities local and affordable. Its annual dues are only $10.
The group will host a community open house from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Sylvania Branch Library, 6749 Monroe St., Sylvania.
Basic instruction on bicycle touring will be the focus of a presentation from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. that day by Nancy Beeman. The group is hoping to create a regional network of novice and seasonal cyclists interested in working up to doing some multi-day bicycle tours.
Scott Carpenter, the Maumee Valley Adventurers’ current president and, before that, vice president, said the group should be thought of more as a social club open to everyone than an exclusive club limited to those with highly developed skills.
“We keep everything as accessible and affordable as we can,” said Mr. Carpenter, who also is Metroparks Toledo’s communications director. “We’re more of a social club in which nobody gets left behind. We’re more about bringing people into bicycling, hiking, and travel.”
To that end, the group also embraces the concept of involving people with mobility challenges, such as senior citizens who want to be outdoors and catch a whiff of fresh air but might not be able to pedal a bicycle or hike long distances.
It has for them a specially designed vehicle called a trishaw, in which two people can sit as passengers and be given a ride by an operator known as a pilot. Its newest acquisition is a bicycle that can accommodate a wheelchair.
Those kinds of outings are being offered because research shows that time spent outdoors can help elderly people battle loneliness and depression, Mr. Webb said.
Maumee Valley Adventurers will celebrate its 10th anniversary as a nonprofit in July.
Its origins trace back to the world’s first youth hostels created in Europe in the early 1900s, in which a network of affordable overnight stays were created mostly for backpackers and bicyclists.
American Youth Hostels, Inc., was formed as a United States offshoot in 1934. That group eventually became known as Hostelling International USA, with local chapters in Toledo and elsewhere.
Eventually, Hostelling International - Toledo Area Council and other local chapters were dissolved as part of the national group’s reorganization.
Not long after that happened, Maumee Valley Adventurers took root and gave some of the former hostel programs a more local vision.
“We called it a new group of old friends,” Mr. Carpenter said.
Maumee Valley Adventurers now has about 300 members. Two of its more ambitious rides have been along the Portage River and in Michigan’s Irish Hills. It has continued a series of travel lectures that began more than 40 years ago.
Through his We Are Traffic group, Mr. Webb promotes bicycling as a mode of transportation, encouraging more people to ride bicycles to and from their places of employment.
But there are no lofty expectations from those who participate in Maumee Valley Adventurers.
One of its programs is called Cycling Without Age Toledo.
“For a lot of people, it’s just about socializing and getting out in the fresh air and enjoying the outdoors,” Mr. Webb said. “There’s something for most everybody. It’s really an awesome organization.”
For more information about Maumee Valley Adventurers, go to mvadventurers.org.
First Published March 27, 2022, 6:08 p.m.
