Politicians Who Matter

Many prominent politicians have spoken fondly of the bicycle. Looking back on his youth, and before he was stricken with polio, Franklin Roosevelt noted his enthusiasm for biking: “I was brought up on this sort of thing,” he said. “From the time I was nine until I was seventeen I spent most of my holidays bicycling on the continent. This was the best education I ever had; far better than schools. The more one circulates in his travels the better citizen he becomes, not only of his own country, but of the world.” ¹ President Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal physician, Paul Dudley White, was a prominent midcentury cyclist, who ended up living into his nineties—something for which he gave biking considerable credit. After Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1957, White prescribed bike riding as part of his recovery program.