My first week on my first bike in over 20 years
cowboyjon
Posts: 89
38 years old, 6'2" with a soft 225lbs broken excuse for a body doesn't sound like the best place to start your cycling career, but it's where I have set out from, with a huge smile on my face! 
Haven't touched bikes since I was a lad. Always kept active though. Played basketball at a decent competitive amateur level in Scotland right up until my very early thirties, whereupon my knees and a variety of other wear and tear injuries forced me into early retirement.
From there I moved even more into the recreational weight lifting world that I had always enjoyed and proceeded to basically destroy all my joints like they had said something disparaging about my Wife. Blew my back out 4 years ago (herniated disc) and dialled things back and recently I have completely shut all weight lifting activities down until the end of 2018 to try and let my body heal. :?
Which lead me to a couple weeks ago and my first ride on a bike in decades.
My wife, two young boys and I were at a caravan in the (kinda) north of Scotland for a well deserved break when she suggested we hire bikes so that we could ride as a family. I thought it was a great idea but warned her there was a very high chance with my back injury that I wouldn't be able to ride more than five minutes but I was willing to give it a shot. Best thing I ever did!
After plenty of research I bought a triban 520 flat bar as soon as i got home from holiday.
This past week I have tried to ease into it as much as my knees and back will allow, with rides of 12, 16, 30 (too much, too soon but I managed it!) 20 and last night another 20 miles spread across my first 8 days of ownership.
I'm having a great time and getting stronger on the bike every ride.
I have my eye on doing the cycle for Scotland 45 mile charity run on September 9th but may be too much too soon, just have to see how it goes between now and then! :P
Haven't touched bikes since I was a lad. Always kept active though. Played basketball at a decent competitive amateur level in Scotland right up until my very early thirties, whereupon my knees and a variety of other wear and tear injuries forced me into early retirement.
From there I moved even more into the recreational weight lifting world that I had always enjoyed and proceeded to basically destroy all my joints like they had said something disparaging about my Wife. Blew my back out 4 years ago (herniated disc) and dialled things back and recently I have completely shut all weight lifting activities down until the end of 2018 to try and let my body heal. :?
Which lead me to a couple weeks ago and my first ride on a bike in decades.
My wife, two young boys and I were at a caravan in the (kinda) north of Scotland for a well deserved break when she suggested we hire bikes so that we could ride as a family. I thought it was a great idea but warned her there was a very high chance with my back injury that I wouldn't be able to ride more than five minutes but I was willing to give it a shot. Best thing I ever did!
After plenty of research I bought a triban 520 flat bar as soon as i got home from holiday.
This past week I have tried to ease into it as much as my knees and back will allow, with rides of 12, 16, 30 (too much, too soon but I managed it!) 20 and last night another 20 miles spread across my first 8 days of ownership.
I'm having a great time and getting stronger on the bike every ride.
I have my eye on doing the cycle for Scotland 45 mile charity run on September 9th but may be too much too soon, just have to see how it goes between now and then! :P
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Comments
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Well done Jon. This is just the start for you - In the last year I've gone from 255lbs to 192lbs through a combination of diet and cycling. Current distance for the year is 2460 miles and I've the RAB Land's End to John O'Groats to do in September which will add on nearly another 1000 in 9 days.
I'm feeling like a new man at 51 years old and wished I'd never let my fitness go to pot in my thirties and forties.
Stick with it and the duration and distances will increase before you know it. Good luck to you.0 -
Similar story to me! Early 40s, knees knackered by football, herniated disc, and looking for a low impact way of regaining some fitness as the kids were growing up I bought a cheap MTB shaped object. It was heavy and bits kept breaking or falling off, but I loved it. It was like a gateway drug. Next bike was a decent MTB, then for my 50th I treated myself to a proper road bike, then next I bought a carbon frameset and built up a better bike. It's fair to say cycling has become my obsession, and now nearing 61 I'm as fit and as slim as I was in my 20s.
So welcome! You've taken what could be a life changing step. Keep riding and more importantly keep enjoying it. Just don't save your credit card details on Wiggle...0 -
Seems to be quite a common pattern for blokes to let things slide in their 30s and 40s. In my case several jobs but not much money, buying and fixing houses and cars, settling down and having children. And then one day you find that the kids can outrun you and that fat bugger you just glimpsed in the bathroom mirror is in fact you.
For those who are then determined to arrest and then reverse the slide, cycling's a great way to do it. Sadly there are still thousands who think it's inevitable, and seem happy to sleep-walk into obesity and type 2 diabetes... 0 -
I like these stories!
I gave up cycling and exercise in general in about 1993 when I moved to London for uni. 20 years later a heavy lump I took up cycling again to try and get a bit fitter and keep up with our 3 sons and the bug bit hard. At 6ft I've gone down from a 38" waist to a 32", 17 stone nearly to 13.5 and feel great! Keep it up, make cycling part of your routine if you can, I really dropped the weight when I started commuting by bike.0 -
Definitely a common pattern here.
London cycle commuter in the 1980s (back when it was weird), followed by move to the west country and rural commute that I always had an excuse not to do. Work commitments, kids, etc led to expanding waistline and moobs.
Then the main road on my commute was scheduled for a 3 month closure meaning an extra 20-30 minutes each way. After first day I got the neglected rusting MTB out and wheezed the 8 miles to work. Not stopped since and after 10 years I cycled 6 days a week for commute and leisure, with 5 bikes that all get used and I'm fitter than I was 20 years ago.0 -
Great stuff guys
Similair story here, very active as a youngster, Martial artist, riding bikes, lifting weights, etc
Injuries lined up so stopped, occassionaly lifted weights but then after work started to get lazy.
started walking a while back, added weight lifting and cycling as cardio. Now all i do is look at bikes and tell the wife im going out for a ride0 -
Welcome to the bandwagon!
I've had bikes pretty much all my life since a kid in the late 1970s, including some nice road bikes, but they never got much use besides commutes or trips with a purpose like doing a small food shop. Then did the common fatal thing of doing less exercise, but not adjusting the diet and then piled on weight from 30s to early 40s, plus got incredibly unfit after my cycle RTA days after my 40th. A lower back injury in 2008 really didn't help, I struggled to be able to ride my old Felt road bike at all because of the saddle-bar drop, but I stupidly kept hold of it for years hoping I could ride it again. One morning in 2016, while having to try and jog for a bus I was late leaving home for, I was suddenly alarmed at how bad my fitness had become, considering when as a teen, I was sports mad. Reduced the excess snacks and dropped ~10Kg over six months, then began cycling for fitness in Jan 2017 and lost another ~10Kg over six months. Then after ~25 years of living in Southampton, I finally visited the South Downs cat3/4 hills (my first ever "big" hills in my cycling lifetime) and got hooked at chasing my Strava PBs up them, now easily the fittest I've been since the early 1990s.
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2020 Voodoo Marasa
2017 Cube Attain GTC Pro Disc 2016
2016 Voodoo Wazoo0 -
*update! *
Since the original post I have cycled 25-30 mile rides every second day and last time out for the first time I managed to get up a pretty severe climb at the end of my route that has been killing me, without putting a foot down. I was doing about 2mph of course but I did it and it felt like conquering Everest!
I have also signed up for the 45 mile charity ride that I mentioned and looking forward to it.
Enjoyed reading your own stories how you came to cycling, very positive feels!0 -
Very inspirational to read some of the stories here.
Cowboyjon - it's amazing to me that you're doing the distances you are, and in such a short space of time too. The distances you managed to cover in your first 8 days seem very impressive to a far older and less fit bloke.
I've been loaned a bike and have panted my way through 20 miles on Friday and 34 miles on Sunday. I really feel like I should have a bloody medal. Am going to attempt my first commute on it tomorrow. It's relatively short by most standards (7 miles or so each way) but the traffic will be a challenge.0 -
Look for routes that may be a little longer, but get you off the busiest roads, makes commutes far more pleasant. ================
2020 Voodoo Marasa
2017 Cube Attain GTC Pro Disc 2016
2016 Voodoo Wazoo0 -
cowboyjon wrote:38 years old, 6'2" with a soft 225lbs broken excuse for a body doesn't sound like the best place to start your cycling career, but it's where I have set out from, with a huge smile on my face!
Haven't touched bikes since I was a lad. Always kept active though. Played basketball at a decent competitive amateur level in Scotland right up until my very early thirties, whereupon my knees and a variety of other wear and tear injuries forced me into early retirement.
From there I moved even more into the recreational weight lifting world that I had always enjoyed and proceeded to basically destroy all my joints like they had said something disparaging about my Wife. Blew my back out 4 years ago (herniated disc) and dialled things back and recently I have completely shut all weight lifting activities down until the end of 2018 to try and let my body heal. :?
Which lead me to a couple weeks ago and my first ride on a bike in decades.
My wife, two young boys and I were at a caravan in the (kinda) north of Scotland for a well deserved break when she suggested we hire bikes so that we could ride as a family. I thought it was a great idea but warned her there was a very high chance with my back injury that I wouldn't be able to ride more than five minutes but I was willing to give it a shot. Best thing I ever did!
After plenty of research I bought a triban 520 flat bar as soon as i got home from holiday.
This past week I have tried to ease into it as much as my knees and back will allow, with rides of 12, 16, 30 (too much, too soon but I managed it!) 20 and last night another 20 miles spread across my first 8 days of ownership.
I'm having a great time and getting stronger on the bike every ride.
I have my eye on doing the cycle for Scotland 45 mile charity run on September 9th but may be too much too soon, just have to see how it goes between now and then! :P
Good man!! Well done. Keep at it!0
