Midlife crisis?

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  • Splottboy
    Splottboy Posts: 3,695
    Yeah, heard this on Radio 2 yesterday.

    If it's a case of wanting to feel "Free", no mortgage, responsibilities, no kids, no worries...

    Then I'VE been having a mid-life crisis since 1969!
  • wgwarburton
    wgwarburton Posts: 1,863
    El Diego wrote:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/11/midlife-crisis-bikes-cars
    Damn, they got me! I've had a sneaking suspicion that going fixed a few years back might be connected to this...

    No carbon/lycra for me, though...

    Cheers,
    W.
  • Splottboy
    Splottboy Posts: 3,695
    I liked the bit where the Radio lady said something like,

    "It gives them a slightly Dangerous image/edge..."

    Reminds me of a "Saturday Night Live" Steve Martin sketch, with 2 square Dutch lads saying,

    "Vere just tooooo Vild and Crayzeee guyz..."
  • asprilla
    asprilla Posts: 8,440
    I picked up my bike again when Mrs A got pregnant I and I realised that at 33 I was going to have to change my lifestyle if I wanted to be playing in the garden with my kids into my 50's.

    I took up triathlons because of my mid-life crisis.
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  • Underscore
    Underscore Posts: 730
    The article wrote:
    And he suspects there is another reason middle-aged men are getting into bikes. "You can buy lots and lots of kit for them," he says, "and you can tinker with them. Blokes like that, and you can't do it with modern cars, can you?"

    Oh so true. Just look at the posts on here, if you need evidence.
    The article wrote:
    A survey of 2,000 middle-aged men last month (by, oddly, the winemaker Redwood Creek) found that half of them had set themselves a daunting physical challenge in the last year, from distance running to conquering the Three Peaks (Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis in 24 hours) and even walking the Great Wall of China

    And I've just started some vague planning for cycling London-Paris-Rome in a few years when the kids are old enough that my wife is happy to look after them for a few weeks on her own. God, I'm just soooo predictable!

    _
  • Clever Pun
    Clever Pun Posts: 6,778
    seems a bit more chat than general....

    Who's recently started cycling at 35 then?
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  • UndercoverElephant
    UndercoverElephant Posts: 5,796
    One of my wife's friends recently commented, "It seems to be the mid-life crisis of choice at the moment.". Spot on. I was 33 when I started, can't say I felt midlife-crisisy at the time, but the thinking is pretty sound. :oops:
    Sun - Rain - Snow
  • MadammeMarie
    MadammeMarie Posts: 621
    El Diego wrote:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/11/midlife-crisis-bikes-cars

    Daily Telegraph and DM have articles on this as well, the DM, true to tradition, said that these mid-life crisis cyclists are a "menace on our roads".

    Another negative label, another platform for the increasing anti-cycling bloggers out there.... :(
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,411
    Good to see journalists nicking, sorry 'researching' the same story. Lazy? Them?
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
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  • notsoblue
    notsoblue Posts: 5,756
    Well its much safer than middle aged chaps buying fancy new vastly overpowered motorbikes having not ridden one since the 70s and crashing them. :)
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  • sampras38
    sampras38 Posts: 1,917
    And the Times had a huge spread with the same article. A work colleague shovved it under my nose and I thought how ironic it was, considering he's currently a rather large individual whose trying to lose weight...and failing.
  • Chewy Cheeks
    Chewy Cheeks Posts: 234
    This is nothing like a mid-life crisis - nothing like it I tells ya!

    There is so much that the Guardian does right but advice on your mid-life crisis - they are just woefully short.

    I have mine planned and cycling to work plays no part in it and I probably wont either.
    No Babbit No, Look what Birdy doing
  • unixnerd
    unixnerd Posts: 2,864
    Who's recently started cycling at 35 then?

    Er, well, me. But that was 7 years ago :-)
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  • Zachariah
    Zachariah Posts: 782
    Well, I'm 35 and I'm trying to get myself into shape for some serious cycling. It must be true.

    I always thought mid-life crises were supposed to happen to you at 45 though. Everything's happening earlier these days.
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    Depends how long you plan on living...

    Frankly a midlife crisis at 35 seems a tad pessimistic.

    :shock:
    FCN 7/1
    Viner Maxima, Tifosi CK7, Giant Bowery, Old commuter.
  • Zachariah
    Zachariah Posts: 782
    PS I cannot afford a carbon bike and I really DO need to lose weight...
  • SamWise1972
    SamWise1972 Posts: 220
    I was about 30 when I restarted riding, but there'd only been a break of about 5 years. And when I did, it was initlally transport to the station, to save on ridiculous parking, but then I snapped up an 80's 531 road bike on eBay for £22, and here we are now. My entire fleet cost less than most carbon roadies, however.
  • stuaff
    stuaff Posts: 1,736
    Life's a crisis, let alone midlife............
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  • Underscore
    Underscore Posts: 730
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    Depends how long you plan on living...

    Frankly a midlife crisis at 35 seems a tad pessimistic.

    :shock:

    Well, one school of thought is that "the days of our years are threescore years and ten", in which case 35 is pretty much bang on.

    An alternative view point is, if you have a mid-life crisis at 35, you still have time to squeeze in another one later...

    _
  • garryc
    garryc Posts: 203
    Well I started cycling again last year at 50 so I guess I must be having a 'midlife crisis'. What a load of b*****ks.

    I'm just happy to be getting fit again. I've nothing to prove, not looking to attract a younger woman as I'm happily married. I'm very comfortable with the person I am and I definately DON'T want to be young again.

    It's great to have a nice bike and all the gear, but surely this is what most people on this forum would want regardless of age.

    So what defines a mid-life crisis? What am I meant to be getting worried about? How would people in their 20s feel if every time they did something middle aged people wrote an article saying that it was just a youthfull fad and they'll grow out of it.
  • Big Wib
    Big Wib Posts: 363
    Underscore wrote:

    An alternative view point is, if you have a mid-life crisis at 35, you still have time to squeeze in another one later...

    _

    :lol::lol:

    everytime I need a new bike for example.....

    I read an article last week about a cycling holiday and the author said that most of people there were 40 somethings. I was just thinking that sounded like a fairly old bunch when i realised I count as a 40 something :oops:
  • Butterd2
    Butterd2 Posts: 937
    Clever Pun wrote:
    seems a bit more chat than general....

    Who's recently started cycling at 35 then?

    Not quite "started" but having done a lot of mountain biking until 25 when I moved to London I only started riding properly again at 37. Now I'm off to ride the Pyrenees coast to coast in 3 weeks time so I think I fit the mid life crisis definition bang on! (which is a little disappointing when I thought I was being original but am actually just following the flock :cry: )
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  • NGale
    NGale Posts: 1,866
    meh! Jake has been having his midlife crisis for the past two years since his divorce. At the moment his thing running 1.5 miles in under 11 minutes.
    Officers don't run, it's undignified and panics the men
  • Jay dubbleU
    Jay dubbleU Posts: 3,159
    I think at my age its probably an end life crisis 8)
  • emdeef
    emdeef Posts: 98
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    Depends how long you plan on living...

    Frankly a midlife crisis at 35 seems a tad pessimistic.

    :shock:

    That's when it starts - it can go on for twenty years..
  • Bacteria Man
    Bacteria Man Posts: 61
    I started having the MLC symptoms as soon as I left uni (3 yrs ago, at the ripe old age of 24). That sense of having not properly looked after myself, suddenly finding that getting female companionship/laid was going to get much harder, and having an urge to challenge myself physically.

    If any sort of sport/exercise is the manifestation of your MLC, then just be glad you're having said crisis. I'm glad I had mine early. Hopefully I can go into my thirties and forties sneering at my bulbous, impotent contemporaries mwaaahaa.
  • dav1
    dav1 Posts: 1,298
    according to this my midlife crises started at the age of 19...

    It will probably end when my knees are shot and I have to buy a walking stick.
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  • garryc
    garryc Posts: 203
    Bl**dy hell.

    My mum cut the newpaper clipping out, attached a note saying "This sounds like you!" and posted it to me.

    I don't know wether to laugh or cry.
  • El Diego
    El Diego Posts: 440
    I've cycled my whole life (minus the 1st 3 years) and it's only now that I earn enough to afford a nice bike, if this means I'm having a midlife crisis then so be it. Better than buying a sports car I suppose, although I can't afford one - maybe when I'm 50!

    I think the midlife crisis label could be applied to people who buy a top end carbon bike and then never ride it.
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 19,355
    Clever Pun wrote:
    Who's recently started cycling at 35 then?


    Close...I started cycling again in 2008 at 34 after a gap of 16 years. A perfect storm of the Marc Beaumont 'Round the World' documentary, British Olympic sucess and watching the TDF got me into it.

    You could say it's a mid life crisis of sorts as part of the motivation was seeing the declining health of both my father and father in law and thinking f**k that, that's not how I want to be in my 50's
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!

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