Columbia ‘Bike Guy’ Gains Fans, Fights Mental Illness

Athar Khan is the Columbia Bike Guy.

He’s the man biking along with traffic on Little Patuxent Parkway, sometimes wearing a hat with a mohawk, sometimes lifting his hands from the handle bars and always flashing his giant smile to throngs of motorists on their afternoon or morning commutes.

Khan says he’s been biking every day since 2001, and he wants to set a record for the days he’s spent with wheels to road.

Since age 5, Khan, 39, says he has suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, as well as severe depression.

A vegetarian originally from Pakistan who lives in a Section 8 apartment on Turnabout Lane, Khan stopped taking medication for his mental illness because of complications from the more than 20 medications he has tried over the years.

“I thought the world was ending,” he said. “I thought the spotlight was on me. The side effects are worse than the medicine,” he said.

His medication now?

“This is,” he said, pointing to his bike, perched along the median of Little Patuxent Parkway.

A Facebook fan club for Khan, dubbed by people around town as the “Columbia Bike Guy,” has 4,542 fans.

During an impromptu interview Tuesday on Little Patuxent Parkway, where Khan was picking up trash in the median, he said he has rotated through jobs, schools and hospitals as he tries to grapple with his illness.

But lately, people in Columbia have noticed him and his efforts to smile and clean up trash wherever he goes.

At least five people honked and waved.

“People give me money and things I do not ask for sometimes,” Khan said. 

Some posters on the Facebook page said Khan is often spotted biking alongside traffic on Little Patuxent Parkway and Broken Land Parkway.

“His sightings are a running joke between me and my friend ... like Where's Waldo. LOL,” posted one commenter.

Another commenter praised his smile and described Khan as “happy, as always.”

Khan said he wants to do “positive things—not drug, sex, alcohol.”

“I want to return to college and not clean streets my whole life,” said Khan. He graduated from in 1991 and said he attended .

But he said he catches himself having doubts about those plans and there is a dark side to his bike riding; he sometimes hopes he'll be hit by a car.

“I want to be out of this nightmare,” he said.

Howard County police spokeswoman Elizabeth Schroen said the department often receives calls from residents concerned about Khan’s welfare but officers do not get many complaints about his riding.

“In fact, our officers’ contact with him is positive,” she said. “He’s following the rules of the road. Maryland is a share the road state, so motorists should share the road.

“When he sees an officer, he always salutes them.”

Khan praised services in Howard County, specifically mentioning Grassroots Shelter, a multi-service crisis intervention center in Columbia, the kindness of Howard County police officers and the availability of Section 8 public housing in the area.

“Police officers do not stop me. They know about my challenges,” he said. “Help is there when one needs it."

“I’m not on welfare, and drinking liquor in alleys,” he added. “I’m an all right person, and help people the way I can.”