LEWISTON – It’s little wonder that Alice Johnson continued to ride a bicycle into her golden years. As a child growing up in West Gardiner, she would ride a bike to school with her brothers and a boy next door. She had a fondness for three-wheelers and one day, a mischievous classmate tied her bike to a tree.

Johnson eventually got her bike free and perhaps that new appreciation for her transportation inspired her to ride more than 12 miles a day into her late 70s.

Affectionately known by some as “The Road Warrior,” Johnson died Monday at a Lewiston hospital. In March, the 78-year-old was seriously injured and hospitalized after she rode her three-wheeler into the back of a pickup truck while out on her daily ride on Bull Run Road in Greene.

Johnson lived on Pond Road in Wales and for years, the sight of her pedaling county roads became commonplace for people who live in Wales, Monmouth, Sabattus, Leeds, Greene and Lewiston.

Johnson rode her bike in good weather and bad, often pedaling “around the block,” from Wales to Monmouth, down Blue Road to Route 202, to the Red Roof Store, then down Leeds Junction Road and back home again.

Family members said Johnson always found joy in the open-air freedom of bicycle riding. She and her brothers grew up on a farm in Fayette, but it wasn’t until later that Johnson got her first bike and discovered the thrill.

“She enjoyed them way back in school,” said Grace Burrell, Johnson’s sister who lives in Oakland. “It was always a three-wheeler. She liked those the best.”

In 1947, she married Ronald N. Johnson in Greene and the couple had nine children. When Ronald died of cancer in 1991, all of her kids were grown and Johnson needed a new hobby. More precisely, she needed an old one.

She began riding again in earnest in 1991 and within a decade, after riding roughly 12 miles a day, she had logged 10,000 miles.

“She went through five bikes,” Burrell said.

In a 2003 interview, Johnson said she began running errands by bike after her husband died. She didn’t drive and had to walk everywhere, she said. Then one of her sons suggested she get a bike, and that was that.

She picked up a dark blue 2001 FS Elite Tri-Coaster with a basket in back, a small American flag, a rearview mirror and a 5-foot pole with a faded red reflective flag.

“I’m free to come and go as I want to, when I want to,” Johnson said at the time.

According to her obituary, Johnson will be buried in a cemetery on Pond Road, near her home and the usual starting point for her daily jaunts.