Bike riders in the county’s Cycle2Health program team up for a group ride. One ride leader, who is in her 80s, is a former triathlete. Her motto: “Do what you can, when you can, with what you have.” Photo courtesy of the Howard County Office on Aging and Independence

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Sadj Bartolo, 84, may have stopped running, but she’s still biking about 60 miles a week. She leads groups of other local cyclists on rides with Cycle2Health, a biking club sponsored by the county. Photo by Ed Warner

At age 84, former triathlete Sadj Bartolo is slowing down — but only slightly.

Over her athletic career, Bartolo, of Columbia, has participated in 13 triathlons, where competitors typically swim one mile, bike 25 miles, then run six miles. She even won two Half Ironman competitions in her age group, completing a daunting one-mile swim, 56-mile ride, and 13-mile run.

In a recent interview, Bartolo said she gave up competitions 10 years ago, when “it stopped being fun.”

This year, for the first time, she’s cutting back a bit more. She no longer leads the longest rides in her Howard County biking group, Cycle2Health; now she leads rides less than 20 miles.

That’s not to say she’s cutting back on her riding of 60 miles per week, largely on Howard County roads.

Bartolo was among the early competitors in triathlons, which emerged in California in 1974. She competed in her first “tri” 45 years ago in Washington, D.C., and later moved up to running marathons, competing in about 13, including the New York City Marathon and Twin Cities Marathon.

Bartolo said she didn’t bike much as a child — she grew up in New York City — but that she fell in love with cycling after her dad gave her a bike as a graduation present after nursing school in Wisconsin. She later spent much of her career as a nurse in the D.C. area.

She got into triathlon and marathoning because it was “something different,” she said.

“I was never into my [race] times; I was just into participating,” she said. “I was just doing it for me; I was never competitive.”

Typically, a triathlon begins with the swim, then transitions to the bike ride and ends with the run, placing what might be the most dangerous — and often least popular — of the sports first, for safety.

“The training is hard,” Bartolo admitted. “You have to be comfortable doing that distance swim and then bike and then run, and after biking, your muscles are [saying] they don’t want to do this.”

Bartolo’s approach focused on endurance, both physical and mental. When a race became unbearable, she said, her trick was to tell herself, “You are never going to do this race again; this is it.”

Another mantra was: “This is not my job; there’s no reason to do it if I’m not enjoying it.”

Nonetheless, she persisted, and had a long triathlon career, racing until she was 74.

“I did it longer than a lot of other people,” she said. “I kept doing it until I was pretty old, and not that many other people were doing it.”

Although she used to run 20 miles per week, Bartolo now no longer runs at all. Instead, she walks three to five miles weekly, a change she said simply reflects how one must revise one’s expectations with age.

She said she likes the motto “Do what you can, when you can, with what you have.” In her case, that means using knees and hips that haven’t been replaced, though, she admits, “my knees get grouchy sometimes.”

Biking for life

Looking back on her triathlon career, Bartolo said, she hardly remembers what attracted her to those grueling races in the first place, except that “I like to bike.”

Bartolo still loves cycling. She and husband Bob, also a former triathlete, once biked 100 miles each day on a three-day charity ride that took them from Raleigh, N.C., to Washington, D.C. She’s also done multi-day bike trips in Spain and Ireland.

Locally, her favorite ride is the B&A Trail, often starting at Bruster’s Ice Cream on Aquahart Road in Glen Burnie and riding 23 miles to Annapolis and back.

Bartolo feels so warmly about cycling that she gave her bike a pet name, Xadina (“she-dina”), Maltese for “little monkey.”

“I always name [my bikes], and I talk to them,” she admitted. Xadina is a racing-type bike with narrow tires, “and she doesn’t like to go off-road.”

When accidents happen

Bartolo’s motto of “do what you can with what you have” is reflected among other equally determined riders in her cycling group. Fellow biker Meme de Carvalho, also 84 — and, like Bartolo, a petite ball of energy — returned to cycling after being sidelined by an accident so severe it would likely have caused many other cyclists to never pedal again.

In 2008, de Carvalho hit a pothole on an 18-mile ride from Columbia to Baltimore. She spent a month in the hospital and a month in physical therapy afterward.

Nonetheless, she returned to cycling — only to be hit by a car while cycling in 2024, a crash that, she said, frightened her even more than the 2008 event.

“I was trembling. That woman almost killed me,” de Carvalho recalled.

She is still cycling, but now she tries to stick to Columbia paths and avoids roads.

“Biking is the best thing for my health,” she said.

Cycle2Health

Bartolo and de Carvalho ride with Cycle2Health, a riding club sponsored by Howard County’s Office on Aging and Independence. From May to November, the club rides on Tuesdays and Thursdays on routes of up to 12 miles, 12 to 20 miles, and 20 miles and more.

The program, in place since 2013, usually has between 125 and 155 riders, who find it improves their health and independence and helps build friendships, said Cycle2Health Coordinator Rachel Filar, a county employee.

“One thing that consistently stands out is the camaraderie among the riders,” Filar said. “Every end-of-season celebration feels close-knit, with everyone eager to catch up and talk.”

Despite its name, Cycle2Health isn’t a rehabilitation program. A recent survey found many Cycle2Health riders want to participate in rides of more than 12 miles. Some bikers in the program are in their late 80s.

Bartolo said she’ll keep hitting the bike trails for as long as possible, no matter her age.

“I’m basically a rebellious person,” she said.

Cycle2Health costs $15 per year. Helmets are required for all rides. For more information, visit howardcountymd.gov/aging-independence/cycle2health.