Bose pedals on new path
by ?
The Vancouver Sun. December 4, 1997, B.5

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- The former mayor of Surrey has thrown in the political towel and taken up an equally challenging sport -- increasingly long bicycle rides. At 65, former Surrey mayor Bob Bose has thrown in the political towel and taken up an equally challenging sport: randonneuring. That means that every day, Bose is sliding into his Spandex, pulling on a balaclava and thermal gloves and clipping in for bicycle rides that start at 50 kilometres and, by next summer, will stretch to 1,200. So far, he has already covered the 600 kilometres from Vancouver to Sultan, Wash., and back on his Marinoni. It took him 39 hours. His goal: the Rocky Mountain 1200, a leg-stiffening cycle from Kamloops to Lake Louise and back next July, and then, in 1999, the legendary Paris-Brest-Paris race. Bose joins the ranks of 125 other B.C. randonneurs. While he's not the oldest, the vice-president of the B.C. Randonneur's Club, Harold Bridge who is 70, says Bose is "pretty fit." The veteran NDP politician said he has no intention of running in the byelection to fill the seat of Councillor Pam Lewin, who plans to resign by next March to move to Trail, where her husband was transferred earlier this year. Bose ended his nine-year career as mayor last year, when he lost to Doug McCallum.