Positive Addiction

A jagged Jimmy Page guitar riff seems to push them from behind. The waves shatter the moonlight into a million sparks. It’s 3 a.m. and Jim von Tungeln and a friend are well into the second 100 miles of a double-century bicycle race, pedaling along the spectacular Big Sur coastline while their support van pumps Led Zeppelin through outside-mounted speakers.

“As we went by a campground and I saw all those tents,” von Tungeln said, “I said, ‘Do you think we’re in their hallucination or they’re in ours?’ We always have deep psychological conversations and practice our psychic powers when we ride.”

Uh, OK.

And a few hours later, they were really having fun.

“Watching the sun come up, that’s always magical,” he said. “There’s always hope in a new morning.”

From Timothy Leary to Hallmark, the mind--after nine hours in the bike saddle--is a marvelous thing. After all, who expects lucidity from a guy who’s been pedaling up hills for that long and loving every minute of it?

Von Tungeln, president of the Irvine-based Orange County Wheelmen cycling club, has ridden more than 100,000 miles in the last 10 years. He’s competed in 48 California Triple Crown events--a series of 11 200-mile races each year--12 more than anyone else. And he’s one of three U.S. citizens to receive the 5,000K award from the Paris-Brest-Paris 750-mile event in France.

Monday through Friday, von Tungeln, 44, rides his bike from his Irvine home to the Summit School in Santa Ana where he teaches. It’s a tame little 25 miles round trip, unless you go by way of Riverside, which he often is wont to do. He saves the serious mileage for a relaxing weekend.

He started cycling 10 years ago because “my knee would swell up when I jogged.” A rather humble beginning for a guy who turned out to be the high priest of the handlebar crowd.

“For me, it slowly developed into more of a spiritual exercise,” he said. “I just started going longer and longer distances. I guess my personal epiphany was my first 200-mile ride, the 1989 L.A. Wheelmen Grand Tour that starts in Malibu and goes up the coast. That was a deeply spiritual experience.

“Doing a ride over 200 miles, working through and past the minimal pains and finally acknowledging that small piece of you that is your true inner existence is very cleansing. The longer I ride, the better mood I get in. It takes at least 70 miles. Feed me and water me and I could just about go on forever.”

Which is what the Paris-Brest-Paris event must feel like. This is not a stage race. It’s 750 miles of stop-if-you-have-to, sleep-if-you-must cycling.

“I’ve done that twice, in ’91 and ‘95,” he said. “It took me 66 hours and 73 hours and each time I slept for six hours, a couple of three-hour naps.”

And this is somebody’s idea of fun? Von Tungeln swears there’s no masochism involved.

“It’s almost always a mental thing, it’s rarely physical,” he said. “I have a little mental exercise. I focus the pain on a huge TV screen, my foot or whatever hurts, I acknowledge it, I accept it, I’m sorry for it. Then I break the screen into many little screens and try to fill them up with positive images.

“In the end, you’re left with yourself on that big TV. That’s the fun part, the renewing part. It’s only difficult for people who don’t like who they are.”

The von Tungelns apparently like who they are. His daughter, Kirsten, 15, has already competed in a 100-mile event. She and her sister, Allison, 12, have done double centuries on the back of tandem bikes with dad and mom, Cindy.

Their idea of a family vacation is a little pedal up the coast of Oregon and Washington. They’ve already covered all of Pacific Coast Highway from border to border.

“We take it real easy, maybe 60 miles a day, and we stay in hotels,” he said. “We stay in cheap motels and do it for about $100 a day for the whole family. Fifty bucks for food and 50 for the room. The hardest part is filling up 12 water bottles and getting everybody going in the morning.”

Maybe it sounds a little crazy, but it’s quite possible the von Tungelns have latched onto something here.

“I did a ride the other day,” von Tungeln said, “and somebody said, ‘You’re such an optimist.’ I had to laugh. You have to be an optimist when you do this. It makes you appreciate all of life so much more.

“Do you know how good one of those barbecued burgers tastes when you get back to Redlands after the Ride Around the Bear [an event that circles Big Bear and includes a trip over the 8,600-foot Onyx Summit]?”

Ah, but there is one drawback to life in the saddle: calluses.

“With as much seat time as I get, yeah, it’s natural,” he says, “but I can’t complain. This is such a tremendous part of my life. It’s my positive addiction.”