Fifty Monster Cookies ago, the Lewis family loved and supported cycling in the Salem area. And guess what? They still do!
With the upcoming 50th year of the Monster Cookie Metric Century Ride, I thought I would take some time to talk to a couple of families who have been involved with the Monster Cookie since the beginning. This month we will highlight the Lewis family.
The Lewis family owns and operates Scott’s Cycle on Commercial Street in downtown Salem. Scott’s cycle has been a downtown fixture since it was founded in 1914 by Harry W. Scott. The current owner, Larry Lewis, bought the property in 1965 and still owns it today.
Larry Lewis knew since the age of 12 that he would always be a “bike person”. His mother did everything she could to talk him out of it. To no avail. Larry has never looked back. He says “I would not change anything in my life. I have been blessed in every way. It has been a great ride”. Larry has been at this so long that he recalls meeting some of his current customers when their fathers brought them in for their first bike when they were kids. Now those kids are grown and are bringing their dads, who are now in their 70’s, to purchase e-bikes from Scott’s.
For the Lewis family, bikes are not just a business. They are a way of life. They have been there since the beginning and have been keystone volunteers at the Monster Cookie rest stop for, literally, generations. Larry’s son, Steve Lewis, has also made his career out of bikes. He is a strong cyclist, mechanic, salesman, and businessman at Scott’s. Their daughter, Andrea Jean Holt (Andi), works at the shop and now has a two-year-old, Kollins, who is growing up there as well. Clark Lewis, Larry’s dad, was devoted to the Monster Cookie. He never missed volunteering at the rest stop right up to the year he died. Larry recalls that the Monster Cookie was a bigger deal to Clark even than Christmas. Larry used to drive to Eugene to pick Clark up for his volunteering even when Clark was elderly and frail. He volunteered right up to the year he died, in 1996. Nancy Lewis, Larry’s wife, rode tandem on the Cookie for about 15 years. She also has been devoted to the Monster Cookie. She used to drive Sag, watching out and supporting cyclists who may be having trouble on the ride. She would pull over at various locations and pass out cookies so people could charge up and keep going. She vividly recalls a local store owner getting quite upset with her because she was handing out cookies to cyclists near his store and said she was “ruining his business.”
Known at first as the Salem Bicycle Club’s Metric Century Ride, the first official ride was in 1977. That year they only had about a dozen riders. In following years, club members would make dozens of cookies in their own homes and in small groups to share with riders. Larry recalls several families coming to their home to make cookies and drink wine for the ride every year until the ride got too big. They eventually turned the baking over to professionals, such as the Oregon Trail Bakery. Then, after the popularity of Mary Ann Sangster’s own giant Monster Cookie recipe became clear, the ride was officially changed to the Salem Bicycle Club Monster Cookie Metric Century ride. In its Heyday, this ride would sometimes draw more than 2000 area riders to the Capitol.
These large, long event rides didn’t used to be so common. Larry talks about how early on in the development of the Salem Bicycle Club, people didn’t used to be in such great shape for cycling long distances and certainly didn't have the amazing gear and clothing we now have available for all weather biking. One ride that stands out was an early 100 miler that the club was trying out near Turner. It was cold and wet and windy and they were wearing sweat pants and stocking caps. It was so foggy they couldn’t see “from here to there and people were just disappearing” as they went along. Virgil T Golden mortuary owner Tom Golden was one of the early originators of the Salem Bicycle Club. He got tired on this ride and took off and rode his bike back to his mortuary business on Commercial Street. He picked up his hearse around noon and came back to the tired wet riders struggling against the wind and opened the back doors to the hearse and everyone got behind and drafted the hearse home for the last 20 miles. They then collapsed on the floor at the Lewis home with their feet up against the walls around the heating vents.
Larry’s granddaughter, Andi, learned to bike right in front of the family store on Commercial Street. She literally grew up at the Monster Cookie rest stop, which her family has staffed since the ride first started. The Monster Cookie is a spring ride - really the first big event ride of the riding season every year in the Willamette Valley. I asked Andi what the worst Monster Cookie year that she can recall was and she said she “honestly can’t remember a bad year”. Even when the weather was bad, she only has happy memories of the Cookie. The sense of community and family that it brought her made up for any difficulties she encountered. She hopes to continue that tradition with her two-year-old daughter, who spends a lot of her time right now hanging out at Scott’s Cycle with her family and her family’s many friends and customers. From Larry’s father Clark Lewis, to Larry’s young granddaughter, generation after generation, the Monster Cookie, and the Lewis’s love of cycling, continues to live on, grow, and enrich the cycling community right here in the heart of downtown Salem.
By Debbie Miller