Frederick gears up for Saturday's high wheel bicycle race
- Sofia M
- Oct 10
- 5 min read
By Sofia Montoya-Deck
Published by the Frederick News-Post on July 10, 2025
Fifty-five cyclists will ‘pedal to the medal’ this Saturday at Frederick’s 11th annual National Clustered Spires High Wheel Race.
Competitors this year range in age from 17 to 75 and hail from 12 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Canada, England and Sweden.
Eleven Frederick residents will aim to keep the High Wheel title local for the first time since 2016.
On Saturday, the race participants will mount their high wheels to traverse a 0.4-mile square course through downtown Frederick that includes North Market Street, West Second Street, Record Street and West Church Street.
High wheel bikes, also known as penny-farthings, are known for having a large front wheel and a significantly smaller back wheel.
“When I ride this bike around town, traffic stops,” racer Daniel Gohlke, 41, of Frederick, said.. “At a four-way intersection, traffic would stop and everybody would let me go through and they’re all with their cameras and telling their kids to look.”
“It’s fun, but it’s also a lot of work,” Eric Rhodes, who co-hosts the event with his wife Jeanne, said of riding a high wheel bike. “It’s very hard for these racers to ride this bike for that long and the course alone is not easy.”
Racers will compete for first place overall and the top finishers in the male and female categories will each be awarded a trophy.
Additionally, cyclists can be ranked in the newly-added age-based categories of 50 to 59 or 60 and older.
“We do have a handful of racers that are above 60 years old,” Jeanne Rhodes said. “Especially the ones over 70, I think we have to recognize that at that age being able to compete in this is pretty impressive.”
Saturday’s high wheel race will begin with participant introductions at noon. Shortly after, the 55 cyclists will be split into two heats for a 20-minute qualifying race.
The top half of finishers from the qualifying races will advance to the final for a 30-minute championship race, which starts at 2:15 p.m.
Last year’s winner, Gui Nelessen, from Lambertville, NJ, completed 24 laps in the allotted time.
Sheryl Kennedy, 60, of Hagerstown, is the reigning female champion and has won nine of the 10 previous races.
“I was initially hesitant,” she said learning how to ride a high wheel for the first Frederick race in 2012. “I flew helicopters in the Army, but somehow these huge bikes seemed questionable as far as safety.”
In 2010, Eric Rhodes challenged Kennedy to compete in a high wheel race if he could get one off the ground in Frederick. She agreed, thinking it would never happen.
Just two years later, she had to transfer her experience as an Army Ten-Miler race runner into competing on a high wheel bike.
“I registered and started riding about 6 weeks before the race,” Kennedy said. She has competed in every race since. “I hope to continue to ride and inspire others to join the fun,” she said.
At its inception in 2012, the high wheel race consisted of a singular round with one hour of racing. After about three years, the race duration was shortened and qualifying heats were added.
“It gave people a break and it gave spectators something new to look at,” Jeanne Rhodes said. “We’re always trying to make it interesting for the spectators too.”
Between the qualifying and championship races, there will be an intermission that includes a “low wheel” race and a “slow wheel” race. There will also be a unicycle show, a style of cycling that stemmed from penny-farthing.
The low wheel race is open for public participation and entails riding a clown-style miniature bike.
The slow wheel race is for high wheel racers who choose to take part. The goal is to ride the high wheel bicycle as slowly as possible without falling, a feat made more difficult due to high wheel bikes lacking a breaking mechanism.
“Not everyone does that because it requires a lot of skill, so our more advanced racers usually do that one,” Jeanne Rhodes said of the slow wheel race.
“I will be participating again this year in the slow wheel race and I think I have better chances of winning that than I do the fast race,” Gohlke said.
Gohlke has participated in the high wheel race every year since his first in 2017. “I heard about a call for volunteers somehow through the biking community and I thought ‘this is ridiculous and awesome and this is part of what makes Frederick interesting and cool,’” Gohllke said. Ever since then, he had hopes of competing in the high wheel race.
“[In 2017], I pulled the trigger and bought a bike and raced it that year and every year that they’ve had the race since.”
In his first year racing, Gohlke placed third.
Saturday’s race will feature bonus entertainment for spectators, such as having 1800s-era mustaches painted on them, hearing Frederick’s Catoctones a capella group, and getting the chance to pedal a stationary high wheel bike.
Eric and Jeanne Rhodes first hosted the high wheel race in 2012, which Eric said make it the first of its kind in the western hemisphere. Other variations of high wheel races can be found in Europe and Australia.
The high wheel bicycle was popularized in England in the 1870s and 1880s. The large front wheels — which typically have a diameter of 52 inches — allow for a further distance to be covered upon each pedal and makes for a smoother ride over cobbled and uneven streets.
“We’ve had racers in the past ride ones from the 1880s,” Eric Rhodes said. “They are clunky, they are potentially unsafe, they’re just bulky, so a lot of them have resorted to riding the reproductions.”
The term penny-farthing is based on the relative sizes of two British coins, the penny and the farthing, resembling the sizes of the bicycle wheels.
In the case of inclement weather on Saturday, the race will be adjusted accordingly, with the restraint of downtown streets only being closed off until 4 p.m.
“We will evaluate the weather and modify our race schedule for those that still want to brave the possible wet roads/weather,” Eric Rhodes said. “The show must go on, but with safety as our number one priority.”
“It’s everything that you would expect from a quirky small community of like-minded folks who ride these crazy contraptions,” Gohlke said of the race. “There’s a real comradery to what we’re doing and a real respect among racers and just high wheelers and anybody who wants to get up there and do this.”
Jeanne Rhodes put it simply: “You’ve never seen anything like it.”
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