Health and bike touring over 50?
Originally Posted by
chrisx
Unlike riding to work or the store, bike touring demands all day in the saddle for weeks on end, to much gear and weight, wet or sun scorched, etc.
Bike touring over 50. Are there any health problems to think about. What about the place where the men touch the saddle, any one know of problems for older gents, of which there are many in this forum…
Besides serious health issues, here are some more trivial ones, from the Fifty-Plus Forum
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
What do you find hardest about cycle touring now we aint spring chickens any more?
My earliest cycling activities back in the 70s and 80s, were cycle-touring with my girlfriend-then-wife, including a honeymoon cross-country tour. Since then, I've been strictly a cycle-commuter, and sport road cyclist, mainly due to work and family lifestyle.
Last year, I avidly read the posts on BF about a perimeter tour of Lake Ontario, and I experienced some surprising mental discomfort that struck me as a sign of getting older.
While I would still enjoy riding about 50 miles a day for an extended trip, the thought of the uncertainty of finding a place to stay for the night was unsettling. (Our previous tours were all self-supported and self-guided.) If I/we were to resume touring, it would at least be a credit card style, if not an organized tour.) On that honeymoon though, finding a place to stay was a memorable part of the adventure:
I guess 30 years of a stable, predictable cycle-commuting lifestyle erodes that exhilaration of the uncertainty…I think I can get back into that if the opportunity arises.
Originally Posted by
DougG
What killed it for me, besides the normal hassles of camping, was having to get up, get semi-dressed, and stumble out of the tent at 2AM trying to find the porta-john because I had to pee.
I took to not drinking anything after about 6PM to avoid having to do this more than once a night! Add "in the rain" to that a couple times and I knew my tour/camp days were over.
The problem now is that I'd really like to go on one of those large-group, week-long tours, but there's no practical way to do it if I want to stay in motels. The last guy I knew who pulled it off had his wife traveling with him in their car, which is kind of cheating.
See the thread for other infirmities
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 06-15-19 at 11:34 AM.