Active for Life: Peggy Prowe is Forever Pedaling

It’s well known in Northfield that Peggy Prowe is a champion of bicyclists’ rights—she has a bridge named after her to prove it.             

And it’s no secret that the intrepid 72-year-old cyclist and founder of the Northfield Pedalers bike club is a four-season sportswoman—she’s been sighted navigating our snow packed streets on two wheels even in the deadest of winter.

“I don’t ride when it’s slippery, but I need to get my groceries and get to the Senior Center to swim and stuff on the bike,” Prowe says. “Why get the car out? The bike uses calories, not gas, and I can have another cookie.”

Less well-known might be that Prowe—unlike some newcomers to the NSC who may be initiating or reviving their interest in active pursuits—has been a teacher of indoor and outdoor activities and organized sports and an avid promoter of safe and accessible facilities for these in and around Northfield.

“I really like to play, and I enjoy helping lots of people to play,” says Prowe, who brought her Master's degree in physical education to in 1966, where she taught archery and aquatics, and coached the field hockey and synchronized swim teams. In addition to traveling with the teams, Prowe also found time to conduct Carleton student canoe trips on the St. Croix River.

The Topeka, KS native had fallen in love with northern Minnesota culture during nearly 10 years of taking Kansas high school girls on canoe trips to the Boundary Waters, sponsored by Voyageur Trails and Outward Bound.

In 1968, she married fellow Carleton faculty member Diethelm Prowe, who taught modern European history at Carleton. In addition to raising two children together, the two share an active lifestyle, and have travelled extensively for both work and play. 

“We swim and bicycle in whatever city we’re in,” says Prowe. 

It was on sabbatical in Munich, Germany that Prowe hit upon a boon to Northfield seniors swimmers.

Prowe was on the planning committee for the NSC swimming pool back in the late 1970s. After visiting a facility in Munich where seniors could swim in a superheated pool, Prowe proposed that a similar facility be built here. At the present facility on Jefferson Road, seniors now enjoy swimming and water aerobics in easy-on-the joints warm water.

Once a biker, always a biker

But Prowe is best known as a biker. As coordinator of the Northfield Pedalers, she has encouraged seniors to be active cyclists, and be active for cycling.

Established five years ago under the aegis of the NSC, which provides administrative support, publicity and roll-keeping for insurance purposes, the group of over-50 cyclists meet weekly for a mix of adventure and sociability that accommodates a range of fitness levels.

Each Monday, the group hosts two rides. For those favoring a slower, shorter ride, Prowe herself usually leads the group through trails and parks in the Northfield area, highlighting historical points of interest and local color.

Those wishing a longer ride—20 miles or more-- meet at outlying areas like the Cannon Valley Trail (Cannon Falls to Red Wing) or the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail (Faribault to Mankato).

In May, the group combined with members of a Lakeville bike club to tour the famed Root River Bike Trail south of Rochester.    

There are also trips to the Twin Cities for special occasions or for lunches at out-of-the-way restaurants.   

“I just loved driving from South High School along the Mississippi River to the Nicollet Island Pavilion to listen to the Minneapolis Pops orchestra last year,” Prowe says. “I think that was my favorite trip."

The group has spawned relationships that members are loathe to let languish, so in the last two years the group has expanded its activities into the winter months. 

“The first year we just walked. This year, the snow was good enough that we could cross-country ski and snowshoe, so we’ve done a lot of that,” Prowe said. Members then meet for coffee or cocoa a member’s home or local coffee shop.                             

In June the group co-sponsored, with the newly formed , a trail ride celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Cannon Valley Trail. 

Pedalers are also helping to plan a Labor Day weekend combined camping trip in Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park and trail ride 60 miles along the Mill Towns state trail.

It’s thanks, in part, to Prowe’s organizational efforts that this and other regional bike trails exist.

As a former city councilwoman, and member of both the Environmental Quality Commission and Park and Recreation Advisory Boards, she has put in hundreds of hours and hundreds of miles to connect communities in Northfield’s corridor with each other.

Proud members of the Pedalers were present when the Peggy Prowe Pedestrian Bridge linking Northfield and Dundas was dedicated two years ago. 

But she didn’t stop there.

With the help of the Pedalers, Prowe continues to lobby for state funds to connect the Mill Towns State Trail—a biking and walking path (also open to inline skating)—with the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail in Faribault and to the Cannon Valley Trail in Cannon Falls, via Northfield.    

“The completion of the trail would be a tremendous economic boost for our area of the state,” says Prowe.

Even in leisure time, the biking bug is a Prowe family affair. 

Prowe visits her son Derek’s family in Minneapolis once or twice weekly; very often she meets daughter-in-law Julie and two small granddaughters for lunch after a cruise of the Grand Rounds—a 20-mile bike trail around the city.

Once an avid gardener, Prowe says she is passing the baton of her backyard raspberry patch to her husband.

“Diet has a little more time—and more flexibility. If I get down on the ground to weed, I get stuck, so I get on the bike instead of getting down on the ground.”

Editor's note: Active for Life is a regular Northfield Patch feature telling the stories of Northfielders who are active, engaged, connected and just happen to be considered seniors. Know someone who should be featured? E-mail editor Corey Butler Jr. at corey.butler@patch.com