I'm a newbie to 50+, having turned 50 this past April. I've been getting reacquainted with bicycles since 2010, when my primary care physician read me the riot act about diet and exercise and a dermatologist asked me if I was a cyclist because I "have the legs for it." That got me thinking about bicycles and how much I enjoyed them in my youth. (Like many, my department-store-ten-speed youth cycling career ended on my sixteenth birthday; the day I got my driver's license.)
Because the Mrs and I at the time shared an 800 square-foot apartment in downtown Chicago with no storage, my first adult bikes were folders: a
Strida, a
Brompton, and a
Xootr Swift. Later, after moving into more spacious accommodations in Evanston, Illinois, I conceived an affection for quill stems, lugged steel frames, and Brooks saddles that eventuated in the purchase and build up of an on-clearance Rivendell SimpleOne frame as a fixed gear plus drum-brake front bike. So enthusiastic was I to ride that a bike mechanic friend and I reconfigured a weathered and discarded '87 Schwinn Super Sport as a commuter that I rode 24 miles roundtrip, two days a week, to my job on Chicago's Magnificent Mile.
Mrs's Velo Orange Mixte (top), lexm's Rivendell SimpleOne (bottom).
The last fifteen months have seen me ride only sporadically. We moved from Evanston to Lawrence, Kansas for a job opportunity. My collection of single-speed (fixed and free) and three-speed IGH bikes – so perfect for flat Chicago – were still in boxes and no match for the undulating terrain. Because I like quill stems and steel frames, I picked up an '85 Nishiki Citisport five-speed for tooling around town. However, Lawrence had few good places to ride and a too-good-to-pass-up job offer in Omaha saw us packing up to leave Lawrence within months of arriving.
Nishiki Citisport.
We've been in Omaha for five months. The bikes are still boxed – being even less well-suited to the steep, hilly terrain of Omaha than they were to merely undulating Lawrence – but I have a local shop, Olympia Cycles, building me up a Velo Orange Campeur with a friction-shifted Sugino wide-low double up front and an 11-32 eight-speed cassette in the rear.
Velo Orange Campeur (in a state of becoming).
So, long story short: I'm five years into my reacquaintance with riding but still feel like a newbie—especially to derailleurs. I've ridden little in the last year-plus, but have remained enthusiastic throughout. Any day now, though, I'll have a bike suited to my new, hillier environs. (Then I'll have only the Nebraska winter to contend with.
) I can't wait to ride again!