They’re Harley riders hitting the open road with the wind whipping past them — when they’re not helping their customers at True Value.

Mark and Joyce Pearson, owners of True Value at 202 1st Ave East, love riding the open road.

“It’s sort of like the old story that after you ride a bike you begin

to realize why the dog wants to hang his out the window so he can smell the fresh air. You see a lot more sites on a bike,” Mark Pearson said.

Mark, 56, moved to Oskaloosa in 1963 with his dad who was taking over the Coast-to-Coast hardware store in Oskaloosa. His dad used to sell Bridgestone bikes in the store, and the first motorcycle Mark learned to ride was a Bridgestone 90cc.

“That was my only transportation.” Mark said. “If I was going to go to school, it was going to be on a motorcycle.”

Mark graduated from Oskaloosa High School in 1970 and went to University of Iowa until 1972. In 1972 he left the U of I to take over the Coast-to-Coast store from his dad, who had decided to retire.

He met his wife Joyce, in 1969 while in high school, started going out soon after they had met. They married on Aug. 4, 1973.

Ever since high school, Mark said he enjoyed traveling.

“The first trip, even before I met Joyce, I’d take that little 90cc and go all the way across the state of Iowa to go visit my grandparents. A little bike like that you could just open up just about as fast as it would go, which is like 60 miles per hour, and it would run all the way across the state, about 200 miles.” Mark said.

Now they’re into traveling farther, he said.

Mark and Joyce took a 20-year hiatus from riding after their two kids were born. It is difficult to travel with kids on a motorcycle, they said.

Even though he was no longer riding motorcycles, bikes continued to be a part of Mark’s life thanks to his brother Marvin, who talked him into doing R

“My brother was up here one summer and went out there and watched all the bikers go by,” Mark said. “He rounded me up that night and we went down to the local pub and he says, ‘you know we ought to do that next year.’ Then he called me up in November and said, ‘Are you ready?’”

Mark then rode in Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa from 1985 until 2003.