Ex-CIA Official, Wife Engage in Overt Operation: Editing

Two or three decades into a career and midway through the second half of life, some people go through a change. They buy the latest, lowest, loudest sports car; they find a new husband or wife younger and better built than the first; they get the implant or the lift or the tuck. Not James H. Taylor, the former executive director of the CIA under William Casey and Bill Webster. When he and his wife, Nancy, tired of their old life as government bureaucrats, they simply junked it and got a new one.

Since January, the Taylors, both in their 50s, have been the editors and producers of the newsletter “Bicycle Travel and Review,” a Manhattan Beach-based “guide to riding in all the right places.”

“When the Cold War ended,” Taylor said, “I, like thousands of others, needed to find something useful for my life.” And besides, writing and editing a publication is not completely unlike what the Taylors had been doing, he said.

“We’d both done a lot of writing.” He paused. “Of course, it was official-sounding memos mostly.”

Today, what the Taylors write is much more accessible.

After scouting locales, they research the history of the region they plan to write about and then hit the bike trail themselves. They profile spots particularly well suited to bicycle travel, providing readers with pertinent details: when to go; where to stay and eat; which routes to follow and how difficult they are; sights along the way and any admission costs or hours of operation.

Each issue is devoted to one trip. So far, the Taylors have reviewed road biking in the Gold Country near Yosemite; Moab, Utah; and Santa Ynez, north of Santa Barbara. The next issue takes readers to Europe for a ride along the Danube River from Munich to Budapest.

Their typical subscribers are “people very much like us,” Taylor said. “They’re mostly in their 40s, 50s or 60s, they want to be active, they take recreation seriously, they want to eat well and enjoy good accommodations.”

The newsletter is “not charitable and not profitable yet,” Taylor joked. But it already has 760 subscribers who pay $44 a year for six issues.

“They come from all walks of life,” he said. “We have doctors, lawyers, accountants, people who run health spas and inns. A lot were joggers when age and infirmity caught up with them. Bicycling is much easier on you, and it’s very good aerobic exercise.”

The Taylors have been biking enthusiasts for more than two decades, riding with professionally run tours and creating their own rides for themselves and friends. “We were arranging trips and doing research and thought we might make it a business. That’s what got us on our way,” he said.

About the same time, the Cold War was ending, putting the military and the spy industries slowly out of business. After 20 years with the CIA, Taylor retired in 1989. Nancy, who worked in the Washington city planner’s office, left her job and the couple moved to the South Bay, where Taylor took a job at TRW.

“The downsizing created a sometimes very depressing environment,” Taylor said. “We said to ourselves: ‘We can do something different. We don’t have to spend life like this. Life’s too short.’ We weren’t having fun.” In late 1992, Taylor resigned from TRW and the couple started their cycling guide.

The Taylors hope to break even by mid-1995.

For information on subscriptions or sample copies ($5), call (310) 546-7651.