06.2.2012 | 1:43 am
I started riding for money.
We became a one-car family for a time. “I’ll just bike to work,” I said, “when it’s convenient.” I got a ride whenever possible. Sometimes I biked to work, and got a ride home. Or I caught a ride to work, but took my bike with me, and biked home. Sometimes I left my bike on campus. Sometimes I left it at home.
When I did bike, I liked to calculate how much gas money I was saving on that trip. Of course, when we were a little more financially stable, we’d buy a car.
I continued riding for health.
I had major abdominal surgery and got scared about my health. Would I recover from surgery? I’d heard that some people never did. As soon as I was able, I started doing stomach crunches. Soon I could do one sit-up a night. Instead of biking when I had to, I biked every trip I could.
I was confused about how I was supposed to bike. Should I be on the sidewalk or the street? I read everything I could find about it.
I found the League of American Bicyclists. I took Traffic Skills 101. I joined the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, and the League. I became a League Certified Instructor. I got a new bike. I lost 30 pounds.
I could do 100 sit-ups.
A friend thought I rode because I’m “green” (environmentally conscious). “You’re not broke and you’re not a drunk,” she explained, “so I assumed you were green.” I guess she couldn’t think of any other reason I’d choose to bike! I like trees and I think we should be more careful of our earth. But that’s not why I bike. It’s a bonus that makes me feel smug and self-righteous.
It turned out that all along, I had been riding for safety. I thought I was riding to save money, and because it was healthy. I discovered the real reason when my 15 yr old daughter on her bike was hit by a truck, right in front of me. She recovered fully within a couple months. It took me a little longer. The funny thing was, after the wreck, we were both ok with getting on a bike, but we were nervous getting in a car.
I knew why. Several years ago, before I started riding, my little 9 yr old cousin was killed in a car wreck. I hated to put our then-7 yr old daughter in a car after that. But what choice did we have? When I started biking, I discovered a choice. What a relief to be free of the deadly car! Learning car and bike wreck statistics and the League’s recommended best practices gave me even more control over our safety.
I guess I go by contraries. Everyone else out there is afraid to bike to work because they think it is so dangerous. I bike to work because I think driving is too dangerous!
Comments (16)
06.1.2012 | 1:56 am
I just got back from my arthritis doctor for my six month check up.
We had been discussing knee replacement surgery on one or both of my knees, not a happy visit. At fifty-two, knee replacement is not a good thing being that they don’t last as long as I would. Fun news.
Well I was surfing tv channels looking for something to get me out of the growing depression. I landed on the Tour de France and Phil Ligget was talking about how amazing it was that Lance Armstrong was not only racing in, but leading the race!
Well I watched the last two days and was captivated by the fact that Lance was able to beat cancer and win the TDF. Then it hit me. If he could do that I could try to ride to help my knees.
Let me state that at this point I was well over 320lbs. I was so discouraged the last time I got on the scales at the doctors office that when I decided to start riding I didn’t weigh myself.
My first attempt at riding was on a mtn bike around our one acre back yard. I made two laps. Two only because I thought one was wimpy, I wanted to die after one.
That was two years and seventy five pounds ago. Since then I have joined a cycling club here, East Alabama Cycling Club, I ride at least five days a week averaging fifty plus miles a week. I also have been without knee pain for over a year and my Doctor said that I have put off surgery for the future.
I know that this is not a unique story, but it is one that I hope will encourage some one to either start or keep going.
Just one more turn of the pedal to reach your goal!
Comments (14)
05.31.2012 | 1:52 am
Why I Started Riding
I have no idea why I started riding but I can tell you this – I am in my mid-forties and some of my earliest memories of being a kid involve bicycles. I can remember riding a bike outside my grandmother’s house when I was 5. I remember riding to/from school from about 5th grade all the way through high school. I have many scars and each one has a story about a different wipe out:
- Foot in front spokes when my brother was giving me a ride home from school and I was on the handle bars
- First day with new BMX bike, taking a big jump, landing with knee on pedal, many stiches
- Half pipe side landing destroyed ankle;
Even though the scars tell the stories of all the things that did not go right, the rest of me, and the fact that I love riding to this day, tells the story of all the stuff that did go right.
I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa (close to Zambia – relatively) in a place and time that no longer exists (mostly for the good). As a kid I had an incredible amount of freedom. There were no grownups out there keeping tabs on me and so my best friend and I would spend our days riding. When I think back about those days I can honestly say that our bikes were as much a part of us as our arms or legs. We rode until it was too dark to see and then we rode a little more. There were no cell phones so no one would call us home. We rode until we kept crashing into things and general y this told us it was time to head home. I knew the roads and dirt trails so well from my friend’s house that I had no problem riding them home in the dark. I rode because, to me, it was total freedom.
Then a whole lot of life happened between the ages of 17 and 35 with only brief periods of riding. I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. I rode a bike as I had no car and didn’t care for the bus. This was great in the summer but in winter it rains all the time, so riding was only available for a third of the year. Then I moved to Portland, OR, then Seattle , WA with much the same riding pattern. Some riding in the summer and very little the rest of the year. With kids arriving while in Seattle, riding faded into the background and stayed there for some time.
Then, about 8 years ago, we moved to Southern California and abundant sunshine. I had an old mountain bike that I had ridden in college. Wasn’t much, but it was a bike. I remember sitting around one morning wallowing in my mid-life rotundness and wondering how I had let myself become so out of shape. I got on my bike and rode up the river trail, a total trip length of 7 miles round trip and completely flat to boot. Liberation! I was so excited. Not because I had gotten off my rear-end and done something, but because I felt like I was a kid again. Everything that I remember about loving bikes as a kid came back to me in this short ride:
- The freedom that comes with cycling
- The fun of going really fast under your own steam
- The wind and the sun and the sound of cycling
- Knowing that if, given the time and if you wanted to, you could ride to just about anywhere.
I knew at that moment that I wanted to ride again and keep riding. I got rid of the old bike and got a new one. I rode that one for a year then upgraded to the carbon world and spent 5 years racing triathlon. Recently I sold the tri bike and bought a Specialized Stumpjumper 29’er and took to the hills. Soon I will buy another road bike and split my riding time between dirt and road. I have a single speed road bike that I love riding. It is a pure steel frame and has the setup for the old suicide sticks, but mine is just a single. I ride it to work once or twice a week and love the simplicity of pure riding without worrying about gears. Hills are harder and my cadence is up on the flat but really all I need to do is point it in the right direction and pedal. I can’t keep up with my buddies on the Cervelo P3’s or other fancy bikes, but I have ridden this thing from Seattle to Portland (STP for those who have not done this I would highly recommend it). This is over 200 miles and I did the first 150mi on day one. I ride it because I love riding and this bike is riding at its purest.
Here is a poem that I imagine Dr. Seuss would have written if he had liked bikes and riding as much as I do:
I ride it here, I ride it there, I ride my bike everywhere.
I love the hills, both up and down
I’m always happy, never frown
My bike is me and I am it
I love my bike, every bit.
I rode a really hard mtb event this weekend (Conquer the Mountain – Lite). There were times on the trail (after 4,200ft in 18miles) where daemons were all around me. Telling me I was fat and weak and old and foolish. And still I was on a bike in the mountains. And the sun was shining and the breeze was cool. So I rode past the daemons. Again, and again, and again. And when I got to the top of the climb and the descent was straight down with loose shale and rocks and cliffs (way beyond my ability), I pointed my wheel straight down and rode. And I loved every minute of it (some in retrospect but mostly while I was there).
I may not remember why I started riding when I was a kid, but I certainly know why I keep riding. Riding a bicycle is a spiritual experience for me. Wind. Sun. Rain. Hills (up and down). Dirt. Chip seal. Bike path. Sweat. Speed. Pain. All of these are part of the ride and all of them make me feel alive. I love and hate each one of these at different times on different rides, but each one is there in some form and each of them combine to remind me that sitting in an office most of the week is a means to an end and not the end itself.
I ride because my bicycles are part of me. Part of who I am. I feel a little silly being 43 years old and talking about bicycles this way, but I love what a bicycles allow me to be. I love where bicycles take me (both figuratively and literally). I love how riding makes me feel. To sum it all up I just plain love riding.
Thanks for letting me tell you my riding story. I wish you all well and hope your days (and mine) are filled with many more wonderful rides.
Comments (22)
05.30.2012 | 2:06 pm
Well, there was this cool bike under the Christmas tree about 50 or so years ago. The timeline is vague, the memory vivid. My brother woke me up at 5 am and together we roused “Santa Claus” and his wife for that early morning surprise.
OK, OK, I know you mean “why I started riding seriously in my present life”. I’ve always had a bike. I even rode my bike from Denver to home, about 250 miles through the mountains, on a whim after my first year of college. That was three days of wonderful pain. But that’s another story, I digress. My serious riding began 13 years ago.
At that time I was commuting by bike in the summer – when the weather was nice, which was about 11 miles one way. I thought I was in good shape. The bike was a 1978 Schwinn Super Le Tour 10-speed (that’s 5 x 2) with down tube shifters. What a sweet ride – I am the original owner. Yeah, another story for later, sorry.
My mom had mentioned one time that one of my childhood friends that I had lost touch with was doing a lot of cycling. OK, that’s cool. But when he, John, and I reconnected at my (ouch) 30th high school class reunion I realized that her statement was really an under statement. He was riding over 5000 miles a year, doing rides like the Tour of Colorado, the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, and 24 hours of Moab. It was then that the seed of “serious” cycling was planted. It slowly began to grow into my psyche.
That reunion was a life changing event for me. Getting reacquainted with those “kids” again made me realize what an opportunity I had let slip by. John and I easily reestablished the friendship we had way back then, and the new relationship is based around cycling (although the recalling of all those old hijinks is right up there too, believe me).
Since we live about 1000 miles apart, we started emailing, and still do, several times a week. His cycling adventures became my research projects and it led me into a new world that seemed foreign and alluring at the same time. Our old friendship was rekindled with a new common interest and I was determined to keep it alive this time. Thirty years; what a regret! But I wasn’t going to dwell on that. I made a commitment to keep this cherished friendship going until one of us dies. Cycling is the “fuel”.
In the ensuing years, my metamorphosis into an accomplished cyclist (John was already there) has provided me with all those things that anyone who has been through that knows. I have raced and won (and crashed), ridden centuries, double centuries, joined a team, and wear my sunglasses outside of the helmet straps.
Those were all fun and improved my life. Well, except for the crashing.
The best part of this process, though, was reforging a friendship with a childhood buddy I never should have let go. (We were born two days apart. Our parents were close friends, too). Each of us has made the long drive one way or the other several times to do some epic rides together.
We have worked through some difficult times on our own home fronts, but now with the support of a true friend. We have gone on to do other fun things together as well. But cycling is still the glue holding it all together. When we can’t physically ride together, we share the stories of our rides. We are creating the memories that we’ll laugh over years from now when we’re pushing walkers.
That is why I started riding.
Comments (6)
05.29.2012 | 1:39 am
Like most kids that grew up in the suburbs in the Brady Bunch era, I rode a bike all over the neighborhood all weekend and all summer long. And like most teenagers in the suburbs in the post-Brady Bunch era, I bought a car as soon as I could and left that bike to rust.
I did not ride a bicycle again until the very end of 2009.
In the 25 years between rides, I was constantly fighting a tendency to gain weight if I was not being active. I tried to keep it in check by doing fun things like snowboarding, tennis, and going to punk shows.
Turns out punk shows are more dangerous than snowboarding. I tore out my ACL at a show in 2006. Long story short, I was misdiagnosed at first and I did not push hard enough for a proper diagnosis. This meant I had an untreated injured knee that would fail on me when doing pretty much any physical activity. Things like mowing the lawn, walking across a dance floor, and this one time when I just turned to answer the phone and ended up lying on the floor.
My weight increased while my overall health declined as I got more and more sedentary, since there was not much left for me to do to stay active. In 2008, I went in for a checkup and had the following test results:
BP 140/90
Resting heart rate 95
Cholesterol 260
Triglyceride 240
ALT 74
AST 29
My weight at this appointment was 260, and it continued to climb through the year to a peak of around 265-270 pounds.
Finally in 2009 I decided to have the troublesome knee looked at again, where after just a couple of wiggles the doctor said “We need an MRI to verify it, but you seem to have a torn ACL.” Fast forward a few months past the confirming MRI, through the reconstructive surgery, and on to the physical therapy.
The therapist said riding a bike was great for rebuilding strength in my legs without putting too much strain on the knee. I was hesitant to start riding, because of a combination of fear of death by car and death by embarrassment of silly clothes. But being fat really sucked, so I figured I could wear normal clothes and keep to off-road paths and put my fears aside. I bought a cheap old hardtail mtb through Craigslist and headed out.
My first ride lasted about 10 minutes. But what an awesome 10 minutes. Every day I would go out on my lunch break and ride a little further, pretty soon I was riding for the whole lunch break and cutting into my afternoon’s productivity.
At the time I lived in San Francisco’s East Bay area. Way out in the far East Bay, where there are lots of multi-use paths and easy access to fire roads and trails right in my backyard. The funny thing is, I never saw any of it until I started riding.
It was like a whole world opened up right in front of me. The miles started to add up and the pounds started to melt away. Fast forward again past some more healthful dietary changes and a move to San Francisco, where I ride my bike for any errand and I ride as long as I can get away with on the weekends.
And now I do it surrounded by cars while wearing silly clothes, something that was unthinkable to me just a couple of years ago.
Between my last checkup last fall and the weight loss challenge last month, my current numbers look like this:
BP 116/67
Resting heart rate 47
Cholesterol 173
Triglyceride 85
ALT 29
AST 23
I weigh 193 pounds now, just about a pound and a half over where I bottomed out during Fatty’s weight loss challenge this spring. I know I have a bit more to go to reach my ideal weight, but I have not been trying too hard to lose while adding miles every week preparing for my first century- this year’s 100MoN.
In just about two and a half years I have gone from that awesome 10 minute slog to easy 50 mile weekends to gearing up for my first 100 mile ride. In the process I have lost over 70 pounds and managed to get my blood pressure and other health metrics all in check.
And it all started as therapy for an ACL reconstruction following too much fun at the punk rock show.
Surprise Part II, “How I Got Someone Else To Start Riding”
I told my wife if she ever wanted to see me on the weekends again, she needed to get on a bike and keep up. Luckily, she likes me and did.
Comments (19)
« Previous Page — « Previous Entries Next Entries » — Next Page »
