it ALL StArtS At 40 it ALL StArtS At 40 - Spokes Magazine

Wander Cross Country with Bob One Last Time
by neil sandler
SPOKES normally doesn’t celebrate the retirement of an
advertiser with a story, but Bob Davenport, founder of
Wandering Wheels is different…a legend, many who know
him well might argue!
Bob and the company he founded in 1966 have guided
more than 3,500 participants coast- to-coast over the
course of 67 supported group trips. Bob himself has lead
and ridden 43 of these 3,000 mile tours, and now approaching
78-years-old, announced he will participate in
his final Wandering Wheels cross country tour in 2011.
Wandering Wheels preceded the legendary 1976 Bikecentennial
crossing, which many incorrectly believe started
the group cross country cycling phenomena. A full decade
earlier, this former All American UCLA football star created
a bike touring concept for which there was no precedent.
When most American cyclists were riding balloon tired
single speeds, Bob had already jumped aboard the tenspeed
bandwagon, buying 15 state-of-the-art Louis Bobet
(the Frenchman who won the Tour de France three times
in the 1950s) 15-speed racing style bikes for his first riders,
who wore Bermuda shorts and t-shirts.
When no one riding a bike in the mid-1960s wore helmets
(and we mean no one other than racers who wore leather
hairnet helmets), Bob insisted his riders ride safely, and
provided each rider with a hard shelled hockey helmet.
Bob also required the use of warning bike flags, and
strongly recommended the use of bike mirrors.
A very religious individual, Bob set out to instill in the
young people on these early tours a sense of physical and
mental accomplishment, a moral compass, and belief in
a higher power. Those who have gotten to know Bob by
participating in any of his many organized rides, which
expanded into tours of Europe, China, and New Zealand,
know they gained much more than exercise and fresh air
by being on board.
Bob credits success in Wandering Wheels to his rough and
tumble upbringings, growing up the oldest of three boys,
with parents who separated, were “among the drinking
crowd” and forced their children to mature fast.
“My dad would put us in a motel and we’d stay there
until the motel owner realized they weren’t going to get
paid,” Bob confided to SPOKES. “I was forced to grow up
early and pretty much figure it out on my own by the time
I was 13.”
But Bob landed “on his feet” becoming “quite a jock” in
southern California and getting into football, where he
went on to become an “All American” at UCLA, where he
played in the Rose Bowl twice, and was named MVP in the
Hula Bowl, playing against pros.
After his football career ended, he was offered a coaching
job at Taylor University in Indiana, just three blocks from
where Wandering Wheels has since been headquartered.
Always a devout Christian church goer, who also enjoyed
spreading the good word of God from the podium, he
wanted another platform from which he could “spread
the word.” Bob confesses that the bike touring activity
became this vehicle.
14 Winter 2010/11