Machka 

I know this thread has been done before, but I thought I'd start a new one ...

How many years have you been cycling?
If you've been dabbling in it since you were 6 years old, like me, how many years have you been cycling avidly, seriously, regularly?

CliffordK

I'm not sure one can differentiate serious vs not serious cycling.

I'm sure I was very serious about it when I was 6.

Whit51 

I've been cycling for almost 60 years. (Man, are my legs tired.) Avidly for about 9 years, as I gradually phased out of running.

Machka 

Well, I don't know about you, but when I was 6, I rode up and down a local street or two for 2 or 3 months in the summer.

Now I ride year round and a whole lot further. I even incorporate something of a training plan in the mix.


Including the 6-onward years, I've been cycling for 43 years.
Excluding the casual early years, I've been cycling for 26 years.

mcours2006

I started at 16. Probably rode 'seriously' until I was 21. Then stopped for 23 years. And rode more 'seriously' the last two. Total serious years=7; total total=37.

Phil_gretz

My first 10 speed was ~1972. I became serious not long thereafter...

mvnsnd

I rode and sometimes raced in the late 80's. Then took a whole bunch of years off. Been back at it for about 5 years now, the last 2 more seriously.

Rowan

Coming up to my 20th year in 2017. There WILL be some celebrating!

Trsnrtr

I have 212,017 miles as of yesterday since I started logging miles in April of 1982.

Yep, I'm OCD.

DrIsotope

I started cycling on January 18th, 2015. Sure, I had ridden before that-- a bike was my primary form of transportation from maybe 14 to 17. Once I got my driver's license, I didn't sit on a bike again for close to 20 years, and didn't buy a bike with the intentions of riding it regularly for another 5 years after that.

18 months later, over 12,000 miles ridden.

GuitarBob

Remarkable, both from a mileage perspective as well as a bookkeeping perspective. Chapeau!

CliffordK

Much of my riding has been bike commuting, plus some recreational riding. And I think I was bike commuting some of the time in first grade. I don't remember the stingray much, but I inherited the little 5-speed road bike with 24" wheels around age 9, and raced it as a midget (gradeschool), although there was no formal training program. I also rode that bike on a couple of 80 mile bike-a-thons as well as riding it about 20 miles to the nearest city periodically on Thursday afternoons.

Longer bike commuting throughout middle school and high school. Not every day, but some, and to college, and to every job.

I did a fair amount of recreational riding during the time in Missouri.

Perhaps the biggest shift was going car-free, or non-driving about 2 years ago.

I'm not a racer, and am not fast. I'm working on the speed a bit now, but I have little that would differentiate the decades of periodic commuting, nor can I point at anything other than the car-free date as a real "start".

rmfnla

Not me; back then I would drop my bike on the ground, leave it out in the rain, etc...

Serious to me is when I discovered Campagnolo, probably when I was 15. This was 1969 so Campy was the only really good stuff available, and I soon became a devotee. Spending $500 on a bike back when a new VW cost $1,800 really makes one learn to take care of one's toys!

Bikes have changed but I've never stopped loving them...

Dan333SP

I don't think you should count the recumbent or tandem miles as serious cycling. It's cheating, after all.

mercator

Can you define 'dabbling'?

chaadster

I've considered myself a "cyclist" since junior high school, back in the days of Lemond, Fignon and Hinault, so I'd call it as 31 or 32 years now of "serious" cycling.

I'm looking forward to 30 more.

chaadster

That's a pretty darn good point of distinction! By that measure, I've been serious since I was 10 years old, in fifth grade, when my parents bought me the bike I'd been lusting after, a 5spd Huffy BMX bike in metallic blue with gold accents. It was my first "multi-speed" bike. Man, I loved that bike, and took care of it, as I have every bike since.

Thanks for the memories, internet:



Hmm, was it "just" a 2x1 two-speed? It was a long time ago...

79pmooney

I already knew my bikes meant freedom but I consider the start was when I bought my Peugeot UO-8 in 1967. SO I checked 25+ years but that really isn't right. If I averaged 18 mph, I only spent 15 months of those years actually riding. So the honest answer is 1-2 years.

Ben

79pmooney

Funny to see Macha bring this up today. Last night I was checking my spreadsheet of mileages. I have about 140 miles to go to hit 8 laps around the equator, 4 each riding gears and riding fixed. (Right now, gears are leading by 11 miles.) Then about 2 months later, I will hit 200,000 miles. I am going to do my best to ride both types of bikes on those rollover days/ Yeah, a little OCD but what the hey, I only get to roll those odometers once.

Ben

GuitarBob

I'll give that a Hot.

chaadster

My mother still teases about how, so many years after that bike was stolen and I was at university, I built up a purple metallic Fat City Yo Eddy Team Fat Chance with custom polished and gold anodized bits (bars, crank, rims, post, bar ends) to replace the void in my heart for that Huffy!

Sad story is that the Yo was stolen too. I guess the gold bits are to thieves like candy is to babies. Gotta admit I've been harboring designs to repaint and refurb my DeKerf in the blue/gold colorway...I never learn, I guess!

The bling factor would be off the charts for the DeKerf ti bar/stem in gold, no?!:

banerjek

Two things struck me when I saw this thread. The first is that I was surprised that the poll maxed out at 25+ years since that's not so long -- as evidenced by the high percentage of people in this category.

The other is that both here and on the road, cycling appears to be dominated by old farts. My only consolation is that sea kayakers and backcountry skiers are even older -- there seem to be relatively few good ones below the age of 50.

FullGas

had a bike since age 5.

rode to grade school most days on a Murray that weighed more than I did. had a junker 10-speed in college that I rode occasionally, but wasn't really into the sport.

first 'real' bike was a brand-new 1972 Motobecane Grand Touring, became a 'cyclist' with that purchase.

44 years later, logging more miles than ever...

1nterceptor

Over 10 years now.

Trsnrtr

Nobody cares what you think, Dan.


At least I haven't counted trainer/roller miles.