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Fifty years of cycling - how about you?

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Fifty Plus (50+) Share the victories, challenges, successes and special concerns of bicyclists 50 and older. Especially useful for those entering or reentering bicycling.

Fifty years of cycling - how about you?

Old 07-02-19, 07:18 AM
  #51  
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I must be about there

I'm turning 55 this August and I started riding bikes before Kindergarten so that 50 years of riding must be about this point. Crazy. Bicycles have always been a major part of my life, being very very times when I was without one. Sure, skateboarding and cars took the forefront a few times but bikes have always climbed back to the top rung in my life. Right now I'm having a great year fitness and mileage. Haven't ridden like this since my 30's. (Wife loves how I look!)
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Old 07-02-19, 07:34 AM
  #52  
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Coming up on my 50 year anniversary of cycling, major props to my guardian angel for watching my back so well over the years, I'd be dead eight times over, without him.

I had a 20" Sears "Spyder" (a knockoff of the Schwinn Sting Ray) with butterfly handlebars, banana seat, and coaster brake. Somehow my body adapted to riding that miscarriage of a bicycle around everywhere. I built ramps and did Evel Kneivel-style jumps (as was the fashion in those days). I pulled on the bars so hard, the stem eventually broke and my dad arc-welded it back together. I think he arc-welded a pedal back on as well. The spokes in the rear wheel were all loose from me torquing on them, I got used to that too.

I never locked the bike up, rode it to school, and everywhere else. My parents got their $59.95 worth out of that purchase.
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Old 07-02-19, 08:14 AM
  #53  
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Originally Posted by rumrunn6
I started at 3 or 4 w/ a tricycle, does that count?
Wow, one of the few "fixed gear" riders around here!

(when we first teach people at the Velodrome if they have ever ridden fixed gear before, the reply is usually "no." The we ask them if they ever road a tricycle...)
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Old 07-02-19, 10:55 AM
  #54  
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[QUOTE=DrIsotope;21001398]These types of threads make me wonder-- have y'all really been riding that long?
I will admit that I have been pretty much a fair weather rider, and only done sporadic riding in the winter. Those of you paying close attention will know that I lost everything in the Campfire, I was briefly without a bicycle for the first time since 1963. It really opened my eyes as to how very important riding, any riding at all, is to me. I am certainly not alone in this regard. Truly GREAT stories everyone, I am loving this thread!
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Old 07-02-19, 12:22 PM
  #55  
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Originally Posted by chas58
Wow, one of the few "fixed gear" riders around here!

(when we first teach people at the Velodrome if they have ever ridden fixed gear before, the reply is usually "no." The we ask them if they ever road a tricycle...)
A big wheel when I was a rug rat. Much cooler than a sit up tricycle and you could slide it.

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Old 07-02-19, 08:56 PM
  #56  
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Seems to be a lot of old people here on the Over-50 forum!

My specs:
First photo on a tricycle - 1956 - 63 years ago
First two-wheeler (Philips single-speed) - 1964 - 55 years ago
First ten-speed (Raleigh Record bought with paper route earnings) - 1968 - 51 years ago
First fully-loaded bike tour - 1975 - 44 years ago
First century ride (actually the Davis DOUBLE Century) - 1977 - 42 years ago
First Deathride - 2018 - 1 year ago

I've ridden bikes pretty continuously since getting that Philips in 1964. Initially for transportation and paper route duties, but I really got into riding as recreation and fitness in around 1973 and am still going strong.
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Old 07-04-19, 09:36 AM
  #57  
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Clearly - cycling in childhood produces more healthy, more active adults - and not without fond, almost spiritual memories of freedom and carefree existence along the way.



This is how I looked as my long-distance cycling life started at 13 - by riding my AMF-3speed 52 miles in four and a half hours. My relatives demanded that I pose for this photo several hours after my journey.


A year later I repeated the event on a used Schwinn Continental - no front derailleur - but if you look closely - you can see a Lucas cyclometer on the front wheel.
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Old 07-06-19, 04:14 AM
  #58  
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Originally Posted by Richard Cranium
Obviously, many people start to ride bicycles at a very young age. I learned how to ride of 20" wheel middle-weight bicycle in the summer of 1958. (BMX bikes didn't exist?)

By 1965-66 I had graduated to a Sturmey-Archer 3spd and completed a metric-century. Just three years later I bought my first lightweight ten-speed and rode my first Century ride in August in 1969….

How about sharing your thoughts about how and when you started to ride - how your cycling-life continues today? I'd like hear from you life-time cyclists......
My cycling lifestyle followed a similar path early on. I learned to ride at about age 6 in the middle 50’s. I have an early vivid memory of riding the sidewalk around the block, and somehow lost control and rode down a side drive into the normally busy boulevard we lived on. I was glad my dad did not see that since he had been watching me do laps around the block.

In grade school a good friend and I did a lot of riding in the neighborhood, and enjoyed just meandering to find our way back. I posted my cycling biography as an Introduction to Bike Forums starting from that point:
Originally Posted by Jim from Boston
Hello to this Forum,

I stumbled upon this Forum from another totally unrelated Blog and I was quite impressed at the volume of activity and range of interests. Back in the 60’s in the Motor City, I had an “English Racer,’ and longed to tour at about age 14, but then joined the car culture.

In Ann Arbor MI in the 70’s I really realized the utility of bicycles for commuting, and began touring on a five-speed Schwinn Suburban, but soon bought a Mercier as did my girlfriend, later my wife. We toured in Michigan and Ontario.

In 1977 we moved to Boston on our bikes, as a bicycling honeymoon from Los Angeles to Washington, DC and then took the train up to Boston. We have toured in New England and the Maritime Provinces, and one trip to the DelMarVa peninsula.

The Mercier wore out and now I ride a Bridgestone RB-1 purchased in about 1991. After the birth of our son in 1988, I have pretty much been a year–round commuter only, but in the past few years I have done a century or two a year and I follow a ten week training program for centuries published long ago in Bicycling Magazine.

I have a really great commute that belies, IMO, the image of Boston as a city unfriendly to bicycling. I live in Downtown and ride to a suburb 14 miles distant in the reverse traffic commuting pattern...

Addendum:…
Second Addendum:…
Third Addendum:…
Fourth Addendum:…
Fifth Addendum:…
Sixth Addendum:…
See also this summary:…
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Old 07-06-19, 08:36 AM
  #59  
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73 years here. I am 80 and ride about 25 miles every other day in warm weather.
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Old 07-06-19, 03:25 PM
  #60  
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Sixty years for me. Otherwise, pretty much the same story -- learned by coasting down a hill on a balloon-tired Columbia that was much too big for me. A lot of my subsequent riding was in winter, visiting friends while home from boarding school, but there were daily trips to and from the swimming hole during summer vacation as well. Parking was nonexistent in graduate school, so I fell into what was to become a lifelong pattern -- bike for practical daily transport, car for weekend sport and fun. Unlike some of you, I don't draw a distinction between "kid cycling" and adult riding, because my riding today is pure utility, just as it was then. I ride a German commuter bike which is a vastly improved version of the Columbia and just as convenient. Riding home from work on a snowy winter night, I feel as if I am 16, the difference being that I do at work the things I dreamed of 56 years ago.
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Old 07-06-19, 09:44 PM
  #61  
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Got my first bike in the summer of '63 at age 9. I turned 10 before the year was out. Little kids bikes weren't much of a thing then, at least not in our world.
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Old 07-15-19, 08:14 AM
  #62  
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Got into cycling when I was about 36. In my youth I was taken up with football and baseball. Went to college on a football scholarship. At age 36 my first ride was a Century. Seriously. Got talked into it by my bro-in-law who had just run the Boston Marathon. One of us was in shape. I knew nothing about cycling. Thus the stupidity. At the end I couldn't walk for 3 days. Literally. Decided I had a choice...put the bike away forever or learn about cycling. I have no idea why but I ended up cycling. It has now been 37 years on the bike. And, at age 73 I am stronger, faster and happier than I've been in many years.
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Old 07-15-19, 09:41 AM
  #63  
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Originally Posted by bruce19
Got into cycling when I was about 36. In my youth I was taken up with football and baseball. Went to college on a football scholarship. At age 36 my first ride was a Century. Seriously. Got talked into it by my bro-in-law who had just run the Boston Marathon. One of us was in shape. I knew nothing about cycling. Thus the stupidity. At the end I couldn't walk for 3 days. Literally. Decided I had a choice...put the bike away forever or learn about cycling. I have no idea why but I ended up cycling. It has now been 37 years on the bike. And, at age 73 I am stronger, faster and happier than I've been in many years.
Oh dear lord, my legs ache thinking of that one. Did you ride a Schwinn Ten Speed.?

I was an avid cyclist when my friend talked me into riding a long ride. I forget what they called in then (about 40 years ago), but it was East of Sacramento. Alpine County. The first fun part was we heard a loud bang on the drive up. It sounded like a shotgun going off, middle of the night, couldn't figure it out. A while later, another loud bang. Wtf? Tires were too close to the exhaust of my rotary powered RX2. The heat of the exhaust blew out the tubes! Thankfully we had splurged for spare tubes and still had patch kits.

It was four loops. Each loop was a 50-mile round trip — lots of hills. Going up was hard work, coming down was fun but there was a cop to make sure we stopped at the stop sign (bottom on the hill) before starting back up the next road. My brakes could barely make that stop!

These days those roads are still there, but the ride is called "Death Ride." I manage four fifty mile loops and didn't move for days. It was 18 hours (we left at 3 AM, got there and changed out tubes, on on the road 5 AM. I want to think it was close to midnight by the time we finished riding. Never again. Still, I had ridden previously, but can not imagine even a flat century at the first ride. Markleeville, CA. Pretty countryside, but lots of hill climbing.

My hat is off to you for undertaking that ride as your first event. Did you talk to your brother in law in the months after that? My buddy still remembers my car that killed the tires after all these years.

Last edited by roundrocktom; 07-15-19 at 09:44 AM.
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Old 07-15-19, 10:01 AM
  #64  
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61 years! I grew up in 1950's suburbia. I lived at the end of a dead-end street so and that's where I learned to ride at five years old. Back in those days we were free-range so over the years I expanded my riding radius. The only parental requirement was tell where I was going and be home before dark (or 7pm dinner). When I turned twelve I was a paperboy so that's when I bought my first bike for myself --> Schwinn Varsity 10-speed!
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Old 07-15-19, 12:59 PM
  #65  
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Originally Posted by roundrocktom
Oh dear lord, my legs ache thinking of that one. Did you ride a Schwinn Ten Speed.?

My hat is off to you for undertaking that ride as your first event. Did you talk to your brother in law in the months after that? My buddy still remembers my car that killed the tires after all these years.
It was a Panasonic DX2000 with standard crank set and a 23 T climbing cog. In the years that followed, my bro-in-law and I did that Century a few more times. We also cycled in Puerto Rico for a week and cycled from Sebago Lake in ME to my house in CT. That was about 300 miles in 3 days. He died from cancer about 10 years ago. I'm still pushing on at age 73 and, although I stick to shorter distances, my times are improving.
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Old 07-15-19, 05:55 PM
  #66  
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I just hit 60 recently, so I figure a couple yrs over 50.

I learned to ride on a Sears Spyder 3sp in probably the mid to late 60's, graduated to a Murray gas pipe 10sp in around 70, and then to a number of lbs road and mtn bikes beginning in 73.
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Old 07-21-19, 05:55 AM
  #67  
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Must have been about 6 when I got my first bike and I didn't get my first car until I was 27. I am now 64 so 58 years on a bike.

Bikes of note:
  • Schwinn one speed with baskets for newspapers. Riding that thing up hills helped me develop cycling legs
  • Three speed in high school and college
  • Raleigh Super Course in college
  • Schwinn Paramount when I graduated college. Didn't last long but that is another story
  • Masi GC in graduate school and another 1 speed that I paid $10 and used as my commuter.
  • Postdoc commuter was a Le Tour. That first winter in Salt Lake City I decided a car might be a good idea.
  • Pinarello F8.
  • BTW I sold the Masi earlier this year for three times what I paid for it new in 1976.

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Old 07-21-19, 08:18 AM
  #68  
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Discounting my childhood riding, we all did that, I started ‘serious’ riding in April of 1982 at 31 years of age after quitting a 3 pack a day habit.

I’ve always kept a daily journal so even that fateful first ride in April 1982 of 2 miles was logged and every mile since. Of course, it was all converted to spreadsheets around 1990 and still kept today.

Up to this morning, I’ve logged 228,569 miles or an average of 6,061 miles a year. Hope to increase my log by another 30 or so later today.
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Old 07-31-19, 05:19 AM
  #69  
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Of course, it was all converted to spreadsheets around 1990 and still kept today.
Must have been Excel 3.0 - I was using the a free "bicycle log" calendar that came with a subscription to Bicycling Magazine. - 1981

Kept using free bank give-a-way calendars - jotting daily mileage and then totaling by week and by month. Got into Excel 4.0 in 1992 - but never used for bike logging until 1995.

Not to mention - I quit smoking Jan 1 - 1981 - and never had a cigarette since.
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Old 07-31-19, 06:19 AM
  #70  
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Originally Posted by Richard Cranium
Must have been Excel 3.0 - I was using the a free "bicycle log" calendar that came with a subscription to Bicycling Magazine. - 1981

Kept using free bank give-a-way calendars - jotting daily mileage and then totaling by week and by month. Got into Excel 4.0 in 1992 - but never used for bike logging until 1995.

Not to mention - I quit smoking Jan 1 - 1981 - and never had a cigarette since.
I actually started in Lotus at work but switched to Excel. I eventually devised my own spread sheet to keep track of miles on each bike plus my weight/calories. In 2009, I switched to Mac and it got transferred to Numbers. I still prefer the Excel platform, or at least I did back then.

Inputting all of those miles from journals and paper spread sheets from 1982 to around 1990 killed a cold winter's day.

BTW, I tried some other systems but always went back to my own.
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Old 07-31-19, 02:38 PM
  #71  
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58 years off riding bicycles

58 years of riding bicycles. Yes I’m a old guy. My family moved around a lot. So I’d piece together old single speed coaster brake bikes that people left at the houses we rented. Most of the time all they needed was the rear hub and wheel bearings cleaned serviced sometimes tubes and tires.
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