Founded in 1972, the Illinois Valley Wheelm’n have been a source of cycling advocacy and recreation to the Greater Peoria area for 40+ years. Since that time, the club has consistently maintained a club newsletter detailing all activities involving the members, area bicycle shops, ride leaders, advocates, city government, etc… While the long-term historical impact of this newsletter wasn’t likely realized by those who started it, a quick look back at 40+ years of cycling history quickly reveals how much has changed – and stayed the same – during this time.
This website is a collection of *most* newsletters in PDF form created by the club from 1972 – 2013. A big “Thank you” goes out to long-time club member/leader/advocate, Ron Anderson, who thoughtfully kept all newsletters through the years in his archives – knowing some day they might be of use. Unfortunately, at the end of 2013, the club board members made a hard decision to discontinue production of the newsletter due to the time involved and lack of interest by a member to act as “editor-in-chief”. Thankfully – in our day & age of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, websites, e-mail, etc… information about our club can continue to be passed on, but in a form not conducive to long-term storage & recall.
I hope you enjoy reading through the history of our bicycle club, and seeing how much our club members have impacted this area over the past 40 years.
