By Janet Mathieu,Special to the Sun Journal

POLAND – Don Robitaille didn’t contribute much to the petroleum companies’ recent record-high profits. He gets around on two wheels and makes a daily trek to Range Pond State Park, his almost-second home.

It takes him about an hour to get to the park from his house. “It’s only 10 miles,” he said with a shrug.

Robitaille is hard to miss unless he’s standing in front of foliage in his bicycle jersey colored in bright orange and yellow. His daily journey includes a barbecue on a picnic grill.

“I bring some paper and I get kindling,” he said. Earlier in the week, he had a cheeseburger and today, hot dogs are on the menu.

At 74, lean and physically fit, Robitaille cycles around town to do his errands, but nothing compares to his trek across the country four years ago.

“The bike has 80,000 miles – that’s more than my car,” he said. He biked by himself to Seattle and turned 70 on his trip.

Since retiring in 1990, Robitaille has been on about 50 bicycle tours, including rides in Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana and a dozen or so with a tour company.

In Maine, he participates each year in the three-day Trek Across Maine to raise money for Lung Association.

The outdoors is his second home and he rides as long as he can before winter sets in. Then, out come the cross-country skis.

“I don’t want to watch the parade, I want to be in the parade,” he said of his zest for living.

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