Fading vision doesn't diminish cyclist's passion

Ron Burzese's retinas are failing. He walks with a white cane. But chances are he'd easily whip you in a bike race.

As the "stoker" in the rear seat of a tandem bike, Burzese, who has just 10 percent of his vision, chews up miles of pavement every week. He pedals with a partner, cruising around town for fun and exercise, and cranks it up in competition.




A tandem bike lets Ron Burzese, right, stay on the road. Fellow cyclists, such as Jacob Hines, handle the navigation.




Volunteers needed
Ron Burzese is looking for cyclists to pilot his tandem bicycle. To contact him, call 419-1372 or e-mail rockthebike@usfamily.net.
Here he is now, with piano teacher Jacob Hines, a 29-year-old amateur cyclist he met last month. Hines had never ridden a tandem before he met Burzese. Today they've pedaled up Great Northern Boulevard in perfect rhythm, legs pumping in unison.

The first time they teamed up, Hines shook he was so nervous. "I was scared out of my mind," he says. "But Ron had no worries."

By the second ride, Hines has gained his confidence. Burzese has helped him smooth out his pedal stroke and hone his racing strategy. In the front seat, Hines controls the shifting. As they roll down the road, Hines calls out approaching obstacles like bumps, parked cars and stop signs.

The wheels hum. Gravel crunches beneath the tires. And Burzese grins like a 12-year-old.


Burzese, 39, started noticing the signs of genetic retinitis pigmentosa as a child growing up in Florida. In elementary school, he couldn't see well enough to play ball sports. He wore thick glasses with an extra lens that flipped down so he could read. When the day turned to night, his vision worsened.

By the time his friends were getting their driver's licenses and first cars, Burzese had to satisfy himself with a new bike. He rode it back and forth to work. That was fine during daylight, but at night he could only see the road when he passed beneath street lights.

He relied on nonvisual clues to find his way home. He weaved back and forth as he rode down the street, feeling out the crown in the center of the road. That reduced chances of hitting a car parked on the side. He'd listen for the reflecting clicks of his bike's chain and cogs on guard rails and parked cars, like a bat using sonar for echo-location. He'd pull over when a car approached from behind, then sprint after its taillights when it passed.

It wasn't safe, but he loved to ride.

Over the years, Burzese's eyesight gradually worsened. After college, he found himself holding his face so close to the computer screen that he got nauseous.

He tried to deny what was happening. He wouldn't admit it himself, but even his friends knew he was going blind.

At 26, he had to face the facts. He wore a blindfold for nine months to learn to function as a blind person. He started using a white cane. And he quit riding his bicycle. "I knew my vision was getting away and I shouldn't do this anymore," he says. "I used to pray that God would wean me away from cycling, because I knew it was dangerous."

Eventually, he entered the Louisiana Center for the Blind. The school taught him to operate outside his comfort zone. He cooked a meal for 40 people while blindfolded. He acted in a play. He rafted and water skied and rock climbed. He forged a peace with his deteriorating eyesight.

"It would be easy to feel sorry for myself," Burzese says. "But with my faith, I felt like I was finally accepting who God wanted me to be."

Still, every time he heard the clicking of bike shifters, he'd long to climb back in the saddle.

As much as he missed cycling, he steered clear of two-seated bikes because he assumed they were technologically inferior to single bikes. Then he rented a high-quality tandem and rode with a friend looking for some extra pedal power to complete a 100-mile ride.

"I was grinning ear to ear," he says.

Suddenly, he could ride responsibly. Within a few months, he bought his own $4,500 tandem bike. By then, living in Minneapolis, he didn't have a riding partner and didn't even know if he could get the new bike through his apartment doorway and down three flights of stairs once he'd assembled it.

He could. And when he brought the tandem to a nearby bike shop, someone tapped him on the shoulder, asking about the bike. He'd found his first pilot. He'd also found his freedom again.


"On the tandem, I'm just another cyclist," says Burzese, who moved to Austin four years ago and is between jobs. "I'm socializing with cronies, enjoying the same breezes and fresh air, feeling the endorphins. Sometimes I catch myself singing."

Riding in a pack that's traveling 38 or 40 mph can rattle the nerves, especially when you can't see where you're going. That's why Burzese listens carefully to other bikes as he rides, and backs off when he hears them coast. He's wrecked before, but never blames the pilot — without someone to steer, he wouldn't be riding at all.

"I like the thrill of the speed and the feeling of the bike dropping out from under me when coming down a fast hill that suddenly gets steeper," he says. "I like listening to the bikes creaking next to me as that rider challenges us up a hill."

These days Burzese owns five tandem bikes, including a Co-Motion racer, and a single that he affixes to an indoor trainer. He rides two or three times a week and does most of his own bike maintenance. Like other cyclists, he shaves his legs. (In case of a crash, it's easier to clean gravel out of a smooth leg than a hairy one.) But he does it by feel, not by sight.

He also competes.

Last summer, Burzese won the informal Tuesday nighter road bike ride six times on his tandem. "I'm out there as a blind person, but I'm just another racer," he says. "I forget I'm blind."

He's had other successes, too. In 2003, he won a silver medal in tandem matched sprints at the International Blind Sports Association World Championships in Quebec. He made the U.S. National Paralympic Cycling Team in 2003 and 2004, collecting a silver medal in tandem matched sprints at the 2004 Paralympic National Championships. In 2006, he won a bronze medal at the U.S. Cycling Federation National Championship in tandem matched sprints, competing against sighted racers. He's also collected three gold medals and one silver in the Texas State Time Trials, also against sighted cyclists. And he's shooting to make the Paralympic team again this year.

One of his biggest challenges is finding people to pilot his tandem so he can train. He has five or 10 regulars, but needs more.

In the past decade, Burzese's vision has deteriorated. He gets wistful that he can't drive a woman home after he's taken her out to dinner. He can still recognize faces and watch his two cats up close, but he doesn't know how long he'll have even that much vision. Colors are more washed out now, and his night vision has evaporated.

He says the biggest problem facing blind people is the idea that blindness is a tragedy and blind people can't do anything for themselves. The stereotype is so pervasive that even some blind people believe it, he says.

Not Burzese. Biking has helped him break away from those misconceptions.

"What's different now is I know if I do lose (my eyesight), I can go on with my life," he says.

Look for him in the bike lane.