Exeter man had love affair with cycling

Born: Sept. 1, 1954.
Died: April 13. He was 60.
Residence: Born and raised in Exeter Township, where he remained throughout his life.

Family: Survived by his mother, Mildred A. Winterhalter of Exeter Township; two sisters: Ruth Ann, wife of George Von Nieda of Reading; and Jill, wife of Chris Giles of West Lawn; a brother, Jon, husband of Debra of Sinking Spring; his companion, Peggy Romanies of Leesport; and four nephews.

Interesting accomplishment: The son of a bicycle shop owner, David was heavy into cycling for much of his life. He was a member of the Berks County Bicycle Club, and during and after college, a licensed amateur bicycle racer who competed in track and road race events throughout Pennsylvania and surrounding states. He’s credited with drawing several local cyclists into the sport.

David Winterhalter was fresh out of high school, in college at Kutztown in 1973 when his father opened up a bicycle shop on their Exeter Township property.

Home for summer break, he’d work in the shop helping to put bikes together.

But riding himself?

“He kind of turned his nose up at it,” said David’s partner, Peggy Romanies. “David was at first like, ‘Why would I want to bike? I’m 19, I have a car.’ ”

In talking to those who came in and out of the shop, he decided to give it a whirl. And that’s when he fell in love. For years, David lived above the shop.

“At one time he owned 19 bikes,” said Romanies of Leesport. “He was a bachelor, and he had no furniture. Instead, he had bicycles on stands.”

David would spend the next several years immersed in the sport — competing in road and track races across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast — before chronic pain forced him to give up riding from the mid-’80s until just a few years ago.

A lifelong Exeter Township resident, David died April 13 after losing his battle with brain cancer. He was just 60.

At Exeter High School in the early ’70s, he was an accomplished athlete, playing on the football and basketball teams. “That’s probably why he got into bikes,” said his sister, Jill Giles of Spring Township. “He had that athlete in him.”

David was a member of the Berks County Bicycle Club, which his father, the late Carroll A. Winterhalter, helped to found in the fall of 1973. After giving up biking in the 1980s, he built and flew radio-controlled airplanes, in addition to sharpening his pool game. A former employee of General Battery Corp., David earned a degree from Lincoln Technical Institute after graduating with a liberal arts degree from Kutztown. He later worked as an electronics technician for Videotek/ Harris Corporation and most recently Micro-Coax in Limerick.

It had been more than 20 years since David had given up biking, when out of the blue in 2012, he decided to give it another go.

“I don’t know why, but he just decided, ‘I want to try biking again,’ ” said Romanies, his girlfriend of nearly seven years. “He thought, ‘You know what, I’m just going to take the bike around the block and see how it goes.’ ”

Despite pain — mostly in the sciatica — David kept at it, riding a little farther each day. He reconnected with an old friend from the bike shop, and together, the two began going for weekend rides, doing as much as 50 miles of strenuous hills.

“He just pushed himself,” Romanies said. “Like a jogger, you get into that zone.”

In winter, David got a special stand for his bike, which he continued to ride at home to keep his stamina up.

A quiet man, David had a dry sense of humor and was very private about his life, Giles and Romanies said.

“When he walked into a room, he would rather you not notice him,” Romanies said. “He wanted to be the wallflower.”  David’s family and friends plan to install a memorial bench along one of the trails in the area in his honor.

“He loved to be active,” Romanies said. “He just couldn’t understand, why wouldn’t you bike? He’d say to people, ‘You can cover so much ground.’ ”