Bicycle Belle 

bicycling playmate merissa mathes is a spingtime ring-a-dinger 

Helping to make June days all the more rare in California this spring is a bucolic beauty named Merissa Mathes, a budding actress and this month's cycling Playmate. During workdays auburn-haired Merissa is strictly a city girl, absorbed in thesping studies -- but weekends she likes to go on a spin through the countryside for sunny sessions of away-from-home homework. A graduate of Santa Monica City College, our 22-year-old scene stealer admits to a fondness for exotic food, ghost towns and windy nights in San Francisco; she also harbors hopes of becoming a dramatic success (her recent role calls include local theater productions and a part in the flick The Phantom Planet. While waiting out the big break, Merissa lives the life of an L.A. bachelor girl, reads avidly (Ian Fleming's James Bond series), cooks up a storm (specialty: veal scaloppine) and dates a number of her understandably enthusiastic admirers.