metalheart44

I think there needs to be a separate forum for off-topic posts such as this

Machka 

Good for your mom!

I debated a while before returning to school and then decided to because I figure that I've still potentially got another 20 years of work left and I might as well increase my chances of getting good jobs.

Machka 

I was logging everything manually (and still do with some data), but was curious about things like elevations and seeing my heart rate in comparison with terrain ... data I couldn't get from my little computer. I was especially curious about all that after moving to Tasmania where most of our riding is uphill!

JohnDThompson 

I just got my first smartphone in December as well, retiring my 10 year old, coal-fired flip phone. It has its attractive features, but I still don't use it much more than the old flip phone.

Machka 

On the hills of Tasmania thing ... that's another thing I've had to improve my skills at as I approached and turned 50: cycling up hills!

I'm a flatlander and have spent most of my life in places with few hills. Now all of a sudden it's difficult to go on a ride without hills.

I've had to drop weight and learn how to climb the hills ... I've even had to learn to become better at shifting.

Machka 

With my smartphone, one of the things I'm doing is using it for my university courses.

I can sit on a bench overlooking a small bay between classes, pull up the tutorial pdf my instructor has just posted to my course home page, and have a look at it in preparation for my tutorial in an hour's time.

I can also be out for a lunchtime walk, have some thoughts on the project I'm working on, and tap myself a quick email which I can then access from home, work, or wherever. Then if I need to ... copy and paste, etc.

canklecat

Yeah, the note taking apps are great. And I'm using voice commands for reminders a lot more than I'd expected, both with Siri and Google Assistant. Not as often with Alexa until I settle on one app that works seamlessly with all three systems (four if I include the PCs, although I haven't found Cortana as useful).

Funny thing, when my granddad was in his late 60s he began carrying around those small day planners that were so in vogue then. He'd always been a fairly meticulous record keeper and diarist, so those day planners were perfect for him. He called it his brain.

Gradually he began carrying a stealth manpurse. First it was in a shaving kit toiletry bag with a handy loop. That would hold his day planner, wallet and keys. Then he needed room for the prescription meds and inhalers and small oxygen tank he sometimes needed. So he began carrying a manly looking tote bag. Each was called his brain.

He loved gadgets but never took a liking to computers, probably because they didn't work as intuitively as appliances and weren't portable. But if he'd been born a generation later I'm sure he'd have enjoyed a smartphone.

shelbyfv

Add me to the late adopters of Strava. It's cool to see the total elevation so now I seek out hills, which improves my ability, so it's all good!

Maelochs

I too would be especially curious if all of my riding was uphill ... Some things are Way different Down Under I guess.

Here in the Top hemisphere, the physics police require us to ride back down now and then.

Retro Grouch 

Most of your riding is still going to be uphill because it takes so much longer riding up than riding back down the same hill.

GadgetGirlIL

This is reminding me of the M.C. Escher staircase. Maybe there is a version for hills too

DiabloScott

Yeah, the mileage might be the same, but most of the time it's the time that matters.

TiHabanero

Two weeks ago I got a smart phone. Odd thing is that I use it like a standard phone with the bonus of texting my kids and email notices. I read the emails, but it is a PIA to compose them so I just whip open the laptop to do that. The great irony is that I am in the tech industry and hate using it in my daily living outside of work, so I don't!

skidder

I used to play guitar all the time up until I was about 35 yo; the guitar got destroyed (damaged beyond repair) and I really couldn't find one in the stores that suited me. at age 51 I was in San Francisco and happened to be walking by the Guitar Center store on Van Ness and something lured me in. I picked up a few guitars in the acoustic room, but none felt right. Just outside the room was a stand with a variety of ukuleles. I started picking them up and a salesperson walked over and started explaining them to me. The baritone ukulele is tuned the same as the four high strings on a guitar so I took that into the acoustic guitar room and started picking and strumming it . . . and now have three of them. Easier to play than a guitar, and so much more portable. Also easy to get different sounds out of it with effects pedals.

B. Carfree

Bah, no need to wait on your children. My son doesn't want to have any children. However, a former girl-friend of his had two. Since she's from Japan, my wife and I became stand-in grandparents to meet the local need. The oldest will start kindergarten this fall, which will slightly complicate our pick-up routine since we'll need to get them at different locations. Right now I have one in the stoker saddle and the other right behind her on a trail-a-bike. We're a rolling, singing riot as we ride through the local university on the way home. Being a grandparent is great work if you can get it.

CliffordK

Hmmm...
Might as well think of long bicycle rides since that is @Machka's thing.

Perhaps we should start with some history. Back in 1981, I was a young HS student. Dad had a bright idea of taking a sabbatical in Italy. So, I enrolled in my first college course, a summer crash course of Italian. Man that was intense. But, then in the spring of 82, we headed off to Italy for about 3 months. I met a janitor where Dad was working who was a cycle enthusiast, and he found my old Colnago. 300,000 Lire Looked at a few bikes, but when I saw that bike, it was "the one". I did some touring around Italy, then brought it back home with me.

The bike looked better then... but it has been my "one bike", or at least my primary bike ever since.



It turns out that I had to have 2 years of a foreign language in college, so I resumed my Italian studies, and ended up going back to Italy in 86/87, based in Parma and Perugia. I kind of planned on the passport expiring while I was there , anyway, so fall of 86, I think I decided to ride my bike from Parma down to Rome to the US Embassy to get my passport renewed. A couple of years before Strava, but I call that my megameter trip The first weekend I got rained out, so I left the bike with some friends in Bolognia and returned to Parma by train. I got back to Bolognia the next weekend and headed south to Rome. About 3 or 4 days down to Rome. I encountered some wonderful Roman ruins near Terni that I would have just passed up had I not been on the bike. I got to Rome, about 500 km later only to be told that they wouldn't renew my passport in Rome, and I had to go to the Consolate in Milano instead because I was staying in Parma. Some people just don't quite understand what it is like to commute 500km by bike, only to be sent in the opposite direction. Anyway, I spent a few days in Rome, saw an American friend there, then headed back North to Parma. And, then took the train to Milano to get the passport renewed. So, about 10 days total, some wild camping, a few days in Rome, and about a megameter in total.

I think in the spring of 87, I went to visit a friend in Grado. Pretty flat from Parma to Grado. I didn't quite make it there in a day, but that was my longest ride to date. Probably somewhere around 150 to 180 miles in a day, plus 50 or so miles by train. Anyway, that was my first unofficial ride of > 150 miles in a day.

I got back to the USA, and a few years passed. So, in the early 90's (my late 20's), some co-workers suggested doing the "Reach the Beach" ride from Monroe to Lincoln City. I think it was about 150 official miles. But, I trained hard for the ride, lots of 50/60 mile rides around town. My friends bugged out, and I did the ride alone, starting from home, so about 180 miles total, carrying camping gear too. Whew, that was a long day. I camped that night, and came back the second day, but took a few shortcuts on the way back.

Over the next couple of decades, I still rode, mainly part-time commuting, and rides on the Katy Trail in Missouri, generally < 50 or 60 miles in a day.

Anyway, situations changed, I returned to Oregon, and after a couple of slow cycling years, I started riding more and more. Still on the old Colnago. Then I was going to a local alternative homeshow when I saw a flier for a "Disaster Relief Trials" race, and decided that I'd build a cargo bike and trailer from scratch for the DRT race. Anyway, I had a blast, and October of 2014, I think, I went car free.



It must have been Spring of 2015 when I started riding to Portland, and started hitting 140 to 186 mile single day rides for the first time since my late 20's.

Spring of 2016, I found out about the Hilly Half Century rides in Portland, and put together my second Colnago for the occasion Vintage Carbon Fiber, with a bit of a mix of components. The ride kind of beat me up, but I loved the "new" bike. Can I call a 20 year old CF frame "new"?



I think 2016 also marked my first overnight bike camping trip since that Reach the Beach ride back in the 90's with about a 4 day ride to Crater Lake and back (where the blue Colnago photo was taken).

If I generally follow the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway to Portland, my mileage comes close to 185 miles. So, in April of 2017, for my trip to Portland, I decided to add a couple extra loops to my trip, and tipped over 200 miles in a day for the first time. Whew!!!

And, hit a bunch of century-plus rides that year.

I started using Strava and recording miles. I hit 6000+ miles last year for the first time ever, I think... Whew!!! I'm thinking this year may well bring in a few more miles since I had a slow start last year.

It is hard to say what the future will bring, but in the last couple of years (around age of 50), I went from generally one bike to a bunch of bikes, and still working on more. I'm anticipating somewhere over a dozen century-plus rides this year, and perhaps will try my first organized Randonneur event... maybe. I still have troubles with the "day after" rides, although I've been cutting my rest days shorter. Pushing hard, I've hit 10 miles x 20 MPH for perhaps the first time in my life. I'd like to try pushing that a little further and faster, and maybe try a TT... maybe.

Connell

Fun thread.

My big change after 50 was when I purchased a light weight road bike. Up until recently I always considered myself an "old-school" cyclist, which was really just another way of saying "tight-wad who didn't like spending money." I had 2 mountain bikes and when I wanted to ride on the roads, I used my touring bike. Spring loaded Brookes saddle, racks and everything. Good enough for me.

Then I got this feather light machine and urmagard WHY did I not buy one of these years ago? I love it and it's given me a new lease of life when it comes to my cycling.

Rollfast

foo.

Rollfast

I haven't had a date in 18 years, that's close.

Garfield Cat

Now you get to enjoy because the lease will expire. And all your leasehold improvements will revert to the owner.

rumrunn6

I've taken to riding off road & I've accepted exercising with an eye on my heart rate

Gerryattrick

At the age of 62 I decided to buy a bike after not riding since my early 20s.

I was virtually forced into it as my knees and my back were shot after years of racquet sports, football and running, so it was the only sports activity that I thought I could do that would give me a buzz while keeping me fit. (I swim like a stone!)

For the past eight years I have loved it and will continue until I drop. The strange thing is that, although I love it, I have no regrets about not continuing cycling when young, as I would have missed so many experiences in other sports and many lifelong friends made along the way. But as you say we have to embrace change or stagnate.

Bob Ross

I was a member of an an improvisational theater/comedy troupe from ~1983 until maybe 2000. We did podcasts before podcasts were a thing: The premise of the shows was that we were a pirate radio station, so not only did we perform live (for a very small audience) but the performances were recorded (audio only) and cassette tapes were distributed; if you didn't see the show but just listened to the audio tape you could almost convince yourself you were listening to a real radio station

...well, except for all the obscenities. And dead air.

=====

I did a lot of theater when I was a teenager, that's something I could see getting back into once I retire.

Carbonfiberboy 

Backcountry skiing, and now that a season ticket is only ~$100, lift skiing again too, after not skiing much since my 20s. Cycling and skiing are synergistic. First time I went lift skiing in my early 50s after having done a lot of cycling, I couldn't believe how strong I was on the skis, considering.

We just got our first smartphone. We're taking the entry process slowly, little bit at a time. Don't want to become one of those glowing rectangle people. It certainly is more convenient for texting.

BlazingPedals

LOL. I have both in the family -- RNs and LPNs. RNs tend to specialize while LPNs have to learn everything. So the LPNs tend to know more about everything. Just my take.