Three days a week, Nester Kramer climbs onto a stationary bike at Maximus Health and Fitness in Riverhead and pedals.
At 84, the Riverhead veteran is taking on a 250-mile America 250 cardio challenge to raise money for American Legion Post 273. But for Kramer, the ride is about more than fitness and fundraising. It is also about service, friendship and making the most of the time he still has.
“I can do it now,” Kramer said Wednesday morning. “Next year, I may not be able to do it.”
That outlook — practical, unsentimental and quietly determined — is what drives him.
Kramer has lived in Riverhead since 1960, when the Air Force sent him to Westhampton Beach, where he refueled jets. He served four years, from 1960 to 1964, and has been a member of American Legion Post 273 for about five years. When he learned about the America 250 challenge, tied to the nation’s 250th anniversary, he saw it as a chance to do something meaningful for fellow veterans.
“I needed to do something to give back to the veterans,” he said.
As of Wednesday morning, Kramer had logged about 190 miles and expects to complete the challenge in early May, well ahead of the July 4 deadline. He rides five miles each session, three days a week.
So far, he said, the fundraiser has brought in about $180. Kramer said he plans to add $100 of his own when he completes the challenge.
He is putting in the miles at Maximus Fitness with steady support from Jude Petroski, 66, a close friend and neighbor who has been working out with him for about 10 years.
Petroski said it took him about a year to persuade Kramer to come to the gym. At the time, he noticed Kramer was having trouble lifting his arm to reach into his mailbox. Regular exercise helped improve that, Petroski said, and the two men have been showing up together ever since.
“This is my neighbor, my best friend, and he drags me,” Kramer said with a laugh. “Keeps me young.”
The two men live a few houses apart, help each other with errands and repairs and often go out for breakfast or lunch together. Petroski, who is not a veteran but belongs to the American Legion as the son of a veteran, said he now rides alongside Kramer on the bike a couple of days each week in support of the challenge.
Kramer said he had never used the stationary bike before deciding to take on the 250-mile effort. He started cautiously, unsure how his knees would respond.
He has arthritis in both shoulders and knees, had a hip replaced about 12 years ago and recently received an injection in his knee that has helped. He said he began with just one mile on the bike, then gradually built up. Now he rides at a pace that gives him a cardio workout without aggravating old aches and injuries.
For Kramer, though, the bike carries meaning beyond the challenge itself.
He and his wife, Ellen, once loved bicycling together on Saturday mornings. They would ride to breakfast, visit her mother and head downtown or to the boardwalk when the weather was good. Kramer recalled that Ellen was the faster rider.
“She’d get down and she’d wait for me,” he said. “She’d tease me about beating me.”
About 10 years ago, that changed. Ellen was seriously injured in a bicycle accident that left her unable to walk, Kramer said. Now she is in bed or in a wheelchair.
Kramer spoke matter-of-factly about the practical realities they now navigate — arranging rides, relying on town and county transportation services and trying to find a wheelchair-accessible vehicle that would give them more independence.
At the same time, he described his wife as a fighter.
As Kramer pedals mile after mile at the Main Street gym, the bicycle is not only a piece of exercise equipment. It is also a reminder of something he and Ellen once shared, and of how quickly life can change.
His own life has been defined by work and motion.
After his Air Force service, Kramer built a long career working for an oil company, where he installed boilers, handled heating jobs and did plumbing work for 41 years. He retired in 2008, but found retirement did not suit him for long. Six months later, he went to work at Peconic Bay Medical Center, where he worked another 12 years as a nighttime carrier serving doctors affiliated with the hospital. He retired from that job at age 80.
Even now, slowing down does not come naturally.
Kramer acknowledges the realities of age. He talks openly about falls, sore joints and the things that get harder. But he also keeps showing up. He keeps moving.
That determination has not gone unnoticed at Maximus Fitness.
What started as a personal goal has turned into a community effort. Kramer said the gym has helped sponsor and promote the challenge. When gym owners Alex and Cheryl Cameron heard about what Kramer was doing, they wanted other members to know about it and support the veteran’s effort.
“When I see someone who inspires me, I ask them to be the subject of a ‘member spotlight,’” Alex Cameron said. “We want people to get to know each other, instead of just passing each other in the gym with a quick nod or hello.”
But Cameron said he knew right away that Kramer’s challenge merited more than a member spotlight.
He decided to get the gym involved in the fundraising effort and had red T-shirts made bearing the words “Go Nester Go” on the back. The shirts were offered to members for $5 above cost, with the extra $5 going to American Legion Post 273. Many members have purchased and wear the shirts to show their support for Kramer, Cameron said.
Donations to support Kramer’s challenge and the Riverhead American Legion Post 273 can be made through Maximum Health and Fitness, 126 E Main St, Riverhead, NY 1190, or directly to American Legion Post 273, 89 Hubbard Ave, Riverhead, NY 11901
Gym staff are planning to celebrate when Kramer finishes, with supporters gathering as he rings the gym’s bell marking the completion of a personal challenge.
Kramer seems slightly bemused by the attention.
“What they did for me here was wonderful,” he said. “I didn’t ask for it.”
He just wanted to do the work.
Kramer is pedaling for veterans. He is pedaling with the encouragement of a friend and the support of his gym community. And he is pedaling with memories of a pastime he and his wife once enjoyed together.
And, as he puts it, he is doing it because, right now, he still can.
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