Bicyc-love

By Michael McNulty

     Behind the glaring, reflective-yellow jacket, the fitted bicycle helmet and the thick, brazen-white beard flowing down to his chest, Rick Price means business.

     After years of leading tours across the Italian countryside as a young man, his passion for bicycling landed him a spot on the advisory committee in Fort Collins.

     Upon arrival, the anxiety to meet a prominent figure in town is quickly diverted by the powerful aromas of fresh coffee beans and a gentle chatter of voices throughout the old building. The Bean Cycle, suggested by Rick as a meeting point, is a huge bicycle-friendly coffee shop which makes it difficult to seek out one person. After walking around aimlessly, the visitor looks to the barista for help and asks if he knows a Rick Price. 

     His voice chuckled with a hint of ridicule, “Of course I know Rick… do you?”

As a cyclist himself in a bicycle-themed coffee shop, the interviewer soon felt out of his element. Word of advice: if you enter any bicycle-friendly establishment, hoping to blend in and appear knowledgeable, then you should assume everyone knows who Rick Price is.

     Seated at a table, reviewing his notes, the interviewer quickly gets up to greet the indisputable gentleman entering the room. 

“Hello Dr. Price…”

“Oh call me Rick.” He interrupted.

This is going to be easier than anticipated.

     In his twenties, Rick attended Oregon University where he met the love of his life, Paola. She had family in Italy and every summer they would visit. He loved bicycling across the country with his wife, but that soon ended when they couldn’t afford time or money to go back. By 1972, after dreaming of scheming ways to get back, Rick realized that there were no tours in Italy. “I wondered if people would pay money to tour across Italy like we do.” He said. That year, he and Paola started advertising in Oregon and went on a road trip to California handing out flyers for their potential business. They sold 25 people that year which was enough to get them back to Italy. After a while, they went on a two-year hiatus because they were having trouble marketing from Italy. They moved back to the states to start a family. Paola was offered a teaching position at CSU in 1983 which brought the family to Fort Collins. Rick became the study abroad coordinator with CSU which still gave them their summers in Italy. “It was like we had three jobs,” he says, “Paola taught, I worked with study abroad and in the summers we were able to do our tours.

     ExperiencePlus! flourished as a touring company and is still running. Now there are multiple tours and a handful of leaders. At the beginning, Rick and Paola were in charge of everything. “It was very intense to cater to everyone’s needs with only two leaders,” he said, “We would have a tour from Venice to Pisa and then greet a new group in Pisa and ride back to Venice. In that short period of time between tours, Paola and I would fix the bikes and customize them to fit the needs of our customers. Some wanted upright handlebars so I would have to reconfigure the brake lines and handlebars.”

     What seems to be a grueling and tedious process is what Rick loved. “Customers are great people to be around and they are the reason I kept up with the tours for so long,” He said. “They want adventure and discovery and I was really into letting people discover for themselves.”

One of Rick’s daughters, Maria Elena, bought the company from her mother and father and continues the tours today. “The biggest pleasure I get is to see people get hooked on cycling and decide to never travel any other way” she said.

     Now Rick is involved with other bicycling campaigns in Fort Collins. If there is something important that is bicycle related, chances are Rick is a part of it. He is currently the Safe Cycling Coordinator with the Fort Collins Bicycle Co-op where he is on a mission to educate the community about bike safety.

When asked to explain his life and accomplishments, Rick answers with a humble reply, then immediately turns the conversation toward his mission. To hear the full story of his life as a tour leader is harder than you think.

     “I’m very passionate about bicycling, sometimes it’s unhealthy” He says. Rick began an education program through Fort Collins elementary and middle schools. He is trying to teach kids at an early age the dangers of bicycle riding and how to be aware. Even during his tour days, Rick did not allow unsafe behavior. “Sometimes I would have to take bikes away from people who weren’t safe. One older gentleman was a liability and very accident prone. He would veer all over the road and I made him ride in the van the rest of the tour.”

     Rick is technically retired, but he is as busy as ever. He loves to ride and help the bicycle community in Fort Collins. “I’ve seen the bike culture grow since 1983. The seeds were here but bicycling wasn’t quite,” he said. At first he didn’t like Fort Collins—in fact it took him eight years before it grew on him. It wasn’t until after he and Paola built their house until he settled in and it truly felt like home. “I love it now,” he said.

Rick will probably always be a bicycle advocate in Fort Collins. His passion for bicycling has always made it a possible part of his life—professional or not. His other daughter, Monica, runs the ExperiencePlus! offices in Italy and she just had her first-born. Rick and Paola are going to make it back to Italy this summer to meet their new granddaughter, and possibly hop on a bicycle for old time’s sake.