The annual summer bicycle feature story

It’s summertime and the roads are filled with brave cyclists battling disease.

The calls and the letters begin arriving every June. So-and-so from someplace far away will be bicycling through your town this summer as part of his/her effort to combat a disease of their choice.

The cyclists always make themselves available to the local newspaper and eager young reporters jump at the chance to write up a compelling story. If not, they’re given the assignment anyway by city editors anxious to fill space on slow summer days.

The stories are almost always the same. The cyclist typically has a...