Back in the saddle
I'll be 63 in a bit more than a month and have recently gotten back into riding after more than 4 years away from cycling. In June of 2015 I was riding on the Jordan River trail here in the Salt Lake City area when I fell hard making a sharp turn. The concrete, in blocks as they always are, had a step between the blocks and my front tire got hung up on the edge of a block and, well, it pulled the front wheel out from under me and I fell real hard on my left hip. I knew instantly I was in a bad way and I lay there on the ground for a few minutes writhing in pain. I managed to get back up but I felt I'd either broken/cracked my hip or otherwise severely damaged the muscles/tendons. I was a bit over a mile from home and I decided to walk the bike back home using the bike as a crutch -- it took about 2 hours to make the mile trip. Went to the doctor and his analysis was severe muscle and tissue injury but the bones were not likely broken.
The first week and particularly the first three days were torture and it took about four days to be able to go to the doctor and then the pharmacy for pain killers and a pair of crutches. The pills helped a bit but I wasn't about to re-up and gain an addiction. I was on the crutches for a couple months and limping for another four months or more but about 7 months later I was, well, OK.
I'd hung my bike up on a hook in my bedroom and there it sat, or hung, for over four years. Not quite three months ago I stepped on a bathroom scale for the first time in, well, years and the number it reported disturbed me -- 105.4kg (232.4lb), the heaviest I've ever been. I'd recognized I was getting in bad shape and my mobility and ability to bend to even tie my shoes was not acceptable, but perhaps the final data point was the development of jowls. So, the day after I stepped on the scale I started an exercise program that consisted of 4-9km of fast walking at about 6kph -- I did that for about a month to get back some fitness before getting back on the bike which I did about 6.5 weeks ago.
The first few rides on the bike were painful with my neck being the body part that affected me the most -- being off the bike that long and being really out of shape meant the act of craning the head up to see where you're going was fricking killing me. Yeah, add in a sore tail as you might expect and the total distance covered per ride was scarcely more than 20km and even then I was stopping midway to rest my aching neck. I kept the pace in the 20-25kph range for those first few weeks but as my fitness got a bit better and my neck became less of an issue I've upped my pace to a still mediocre 25-28kph and upped my distance to just about 30km per ride.
Now for some good news ...
As of today my weight is down to 97.1kg so I've come down 8.3kg or about 18.3lbs and those nasty jowls are pretty much gone. My ability to bend and move is much better and my fitness and endurance are much improved though much more remains to be improved. I'm hoping to be near 90kg by the end of the year, it's certainly doable but it gets harder over time so we'll see.
And just for completeness by kit includes: Trek Madone 4.7 58cm with powertap SL+ hub and blade spokes with rims that are modestly deeper than older style straight rims. I have an old Garmin Edge 705 head unit with heart-rate strap and speed and cadence sensor. My average power now is still quite dismal at 140-160W but that's an improvement from the 110W when first on the bike a couple months ago. I'm hoping to be up to or near 200W average by the end of the year and if so that would put my average pace on flat ground at about 32kph which would be a big improvement.
One thing that's been a problem is frequent flats -- in the nearly two months I've had 4-5 flats with the last one, just a couple days ago, being a pinch flat. Prior to getting back on the bike this time I'd only had one flat in several years and that was do to a nail that went through the tire AND the rim.
Brian