Four Bluffton University alums, better known as Bluffton Biking Beavers, conquered the 50th annual Tour of Scioto River Valley (TOSRV) earlier this month.
The four bikers are Everett Collier, Mitch Kingley, Wendell Miller all of Bluffton, and Gary Habeger, Bluffton University alum, from Berne, Ind.
This year's 210-mile round-trip tour from Columbus to Portsmouth commemorated the 50th year since 1962 when a father and son decided to make the trip.
Since then the tour has become known as the granddaddy of bicycle tours, growing to a ridership of close to 6,000 in the early 1990s to it regular size now of 3,000.
Several from Bluffton have joined the annual Mother's Day weekend trip on the flat to rolling hills to the Ohio River and back.
Collier has ridden the tour since 1987, missing only five tours over the years. He convinced Miller to join in the early 1990s with Habegger, soon after and Kingsley joining in the late1990s.
They have all logged at least 10 trips. Collier, Miller and Habegger claim that this is the last TOSRV. Kingsley has not made that same statement, according his biking companions. Weather and wind has made this a interesting ride over the years, ranging from snow to 40+miles-per-hour winds.
"When the weather is right, like this year's tour, the Beaver jerseys come out and people often stop to ask where's Bluffton," said Collier. "This year a Bluffton alum passed us on the road and pulled in at a stop to say hello. On the road it's: 'There goes those Beavers! "Yeah, man!' "
