Fair Oaks Ranch resident, 95, part of ‘Trailblazers’ bicycle group
He’s run six marathons, 20 long-distance cycling events, and competed in two triathlons, which he’s won.
And in four weeks, he turns 96 years old. You may have seen him recently — he’s the older gentleman in the yellow jersey riding through Fair Oaks Ranch, or at some Senior Games event in Texas. Or New Mexico. Or wherever life leads him.
Lee Wheeler is a champion: in sport, in life and in attitude. Very little has slowed him down in life — from enrolling in the U.S. Navy at 17 during World War II, to teaching, to taking up running in his 50s and cycling in his 60s.
Wheeler, a native of the Paris, Texas, area, batted around family to family during his youth after losing his mother in 1933 and father in 1938. When WWII rolled around, he and a group of teens heard the government will pay for college for those who enlist.
And Wheeler did. Although he was only 17 at the time, his grandfather vouched for him at the enlisting station. (“I turned 18 in boot camp; I told no one,” Wheeler recalled.)
San Diego Naval Training Station was where he trained before later service aboard two light cruisers, the USS Topeka and USS Pasadena, before winding up on a destroyer escort, the USS Parker. His military career included time served on both coasts as part of the Naval police.
Twists and turns in life brought him to the San Antonio area in 1975, when he and wife Rita found work in the area, she in the world of business and he, in education.
“I began running on the school track with the school athletes after school,” Wheeler said. “I could not run as fast as the 17 and 18-year-olds, but it resulted in good relationship.”
Wheeler began entering 20K and 40K races, kept training and finally began to prevail.
“I finally started winning; this kept me motivated to run more often, run more distances and win more,” he said.
The Wheelers moved to Fair Oaks Ranch in 1985 and his interest soon turned from running to cycling. “I ran when I was in my 50s, and I started cycling when I reached my 60s,” he said.
When Wheeler said he “took up” cycling, he meant it; it was more than a passing fancy.
“(Friend) Nolan Kuehn and I rode our bikes from Fair Oaks Ranch to Corpus Christi,” a trek of more than 170 miles.
“We had lunch along the way and spent the night in motels,” he said. “We had our wives drive down to Corpus and spend the day, then take us back to Fair Oaks.”
Having already entered his 60s by 1998, Wheeler found an outlet for his riding energy and enthusiasm in the Texas Senior Games. Participants are grouped according to age, at five-year intervals.
In April of 1998, at 70, Wheeler participated in his first Texas Regional Senior Games cycling event. He’s taken part in regional cycling games at the Barshop Jewish Community Center in San Antonio annually, from 19982009; rode in the Kerrville Senior Games in 1998, 2000 and 2001; and the Lubbock Senior Games in 1999 and 2002. Other games and cities followed, right up to his April 2015 entry in the Senior Games at the Barshop at the age of 87.
Having competed in Texas Senior Games cycling events since 1998, he decided to pair his running background with his riding expertise and entered the 2003 Huntsman World Senior Games Triathlon in St. George. Utah.
The race involved a 450-meter swim, 20K (12.4-mile) bike ride, and finished with a 5K (3.1-mile) run. So, at the age of 75, Wheeler entered his first-ever triathlon.
And won. Wheeler brought home the gold that year by placing first in his age group of 17 participants.
His most recent national-level competition was the 17th National Senior Games in June of 2019, joining 13,881 other 50-and-over athletes participating in more than 20 sports.
One of the crowning moments of his cycling career came in 2016 when he was inducted into the Texas Hall of Fame.
His current passion is the “Trailblazers” — a group of recreational riders organized a few years ago, originally featuring Wheeler and four or five of his cycling buddies. But the group quickly blossomed to almost 50 trailblazing members who do it for the exercise, friendship and fun.
Health issues have forced Wheeler to curtail his rides, and the distances he now pedals. “I have rationalized my situation as time to complete many business and pleasurable activities,” he said. July 29 will mark his 96th birthday. Being it falls on a Saturday, keep an eye out for a cyclist in yellow, maybe pedaling slower than the rest of the pack, much slower than he did in Utah, or Kerrville or Albuquerque.
But pedaling, nonetheless.
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