Peddling Out of Fear’s Way : In search of an activity to fend off diabetes, a North Hollywood businessman, 62, chose to get on a 10-speed. He now rides at least 500 miles a month.

Alan Kessler readily admits it. At 49, he was “nothing more than a true couch potato.”

“I wasn’t athletic as a youngster or as an adult,” he says. “I had a bike that my son gave me, but the one time I rode it around the block, I got so exhausted, so flushed, that I thought I’d keel over.”

Then one day in 1980, Kessler, a jewelry shop owner in North Hollywood, became so shook up that he abruptly began a cycling mania that today takes him, at age 62, nearly 150 miles a week and gives him legs that look like steel rods. His motivation was a very simple one.

“Fear,” he says. “It was either ride--or shoot insulin into my arm for the rest of my life.”

At a routine medical checkup, Kessler discovered he was a borderline diabetic. His blood-sugar count was 190 and heading for double the 120 rate that is considered normal. His pancreas was experiencing partial-to-full failure, and therefore was unable to produce insulin, which lowers blood glucose by promoting its storage in the liver. In his future lay numbness of feet and hands, trouble walking up stairs, obesity and probably early death.

Kessler’s doctor at the time, the now-retired general practitioner David H. Winer of Mission Hills, gave him two choices: either begin insulin shots, or cut sweets and fat out of his diet and begin a vigorous exercise program to burn up his system’s excess sugar.

“Everybody who treats diabetes says exercise is important,” explained Winer. “It’s not a cure, as the Pritikin Center will tell you. But they will also tell you that exercise can reduce blood sugar and get people off of insulin.” Or in Kessler’s case, prevent the need for insulin.

The exercise Winer prescribed had to be 100% aerobic and done for at least half an hour a day. Since Kessler says he “couldn’t run worth a damn” and found swimming boring, that left him with his “$100 Sears Special 10-speed.”

In three weeks, Kessler worked himself up to 10 miles per day. After three months, he was able to make the five-mile climb up Sepulveda Pass. Several weeks later, he joined the San Fernando Valley Bike Club and rode 50 miles in one day. On his one-year cycling anniversary day, he rode what cyclists call a “century,” 100 miles. Then he rewarded himself with the first of five new bikes he has bought over the last decade, the latest being a $2,000 Italian-made Masi.

Today, Kessler rides at least 500 miles a month and 5,000 miles a year. He once rode to Las Vegas--300 miles away--in three days. He’s made a lot of friends--doctors, lawyers, plumbers and unemployed “bike junkies”--through his weekend club rides.

Of course, there are also drawbacks to cycling. For instance, it doesn’t give him time to play golf at annual conferences of the California Jewelers Assn., of which he is vice president. “They think I’m crazy,” he says with a laugh. “While they play, I ride. Then, at dinner, they talk about how beat they are--and they were in a golf cart all day.”

Kessler has sustained a couple of cycling-related injuries. Once, while not paying attention, he went head-first through the back window of a parked Mercedes near Pierce College and ended up with 56 stitches and $11,000 worth of facial plastic surgery. But he says it’s been worth it.

“I’m in wonderful shape,” he says. “One of the policemen taking a report at one of my accidents told the ambulance dispatcher, ‘We’ve got an old guy here with the body of a teen-ager and legs like metal bars.’ And when I went in to have a kidney stone removed, the nurse was so astounded by my heart rate that she kept taking the test over again, thinking the machine wasn’t working.”

That’s understandable. Kessler’s resting heart rate is 45, that of a 25-year-old competitive runner. His blood pressure is 130 over 70, that of a healthy man half his age. His weight, which was 205 11 years ago before he started riding, is now a rock-hard 175. All his life, he had a bad back. But because cycling stretches the vertebrae, he hasn’t had a back problem in more than a decade.

Nevertheless, Winer warns that Kessler’s experience may not hold true for everybody.

“Alan is just a very motivated person whose body responded better than average,” he says. “Exercise doesn’t always ward off diabetes. But it always helps, especially coupled with a change of diet.”

Indeed, turning 60 two years ago gave Kessler additional motivation to maintain his cycling pace.

“My father died of a heart attack at age 63,” he says, “but with my heart rate at 45, it’ll take an awful big one to get me. If I don’t get hit by a truck, I plan to be riding when I’m 100.”