82 plus
I’m 82, and just voted – catapulting us up to a whopping 2%!!!
I’m glad I saw the age distribution chart. I now know why I’ve seen so few posts from senior riders. I was riding 6 or 7 metric centuries each season, until the pandemic cancelled everything in 2020. I was already restricting myself to routes that had a maximum 3000 feet of climb. Now I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to maintain enough fitness to resume century rides if they return in ’22.
My fitness efforts were interrupted in March ’21 when my bike (Specialized Sirrus Elite) was stolen. I thought that I’d treat myself to a new bike, maybe with some custom re-gearing to help me on the hills – but in March ’21 there were no new bikes☹. I was stuck searching the used market, and stumbled onto a cyclecross build. It was too big for me, but it was basically a road bike with flat bars, and a 50/34 x 11/42 (11 speed) gearing. The low granny gear was nearly perfect, and the flat bars suited me because I have a severely deformed left arm and hand. The thumb shifters work better for me, and my left arm prevents me from going down onto the drops anyway. The too-big frame and 175mm cranks are for a man 6” taller than me - but the gearing was such a fantastic improvement for my 82 yo legs that I’m still riding it 6 months later. I’m now climbing most of my hills sitting down.
This experience has left me wondering if more riders over 70 would keep riding if they had bikes with gearing appropriate for their fitness level. Off-the-shelf bikes in the LBS have gearing optimized for bike jocks in their 30’s and 40’s. But…., that’s a subject for a different thread.