Biking question for those 50 and up.

[violette]

How do you ride now compared to when you were a teenager? I'm 40 and remember being able to ride in a strong wind with no problem. Now, just a breeze slows me down. I could ride all day everyday, now I get tired after a couple of hours. I read we can ride the same, but as we get older, our bodies don't recover as quickly as they did.

[violette]

Sorry, I just noticed the thread with the same subject. Just diregard...

[mimitabby]

Violette, I can ride farther in headwinds than i could when i was in my 20's.
It is not your age, but your conditioning.
I could barely ride 5 miles when i was in my 20's. now I can ride 50 without training for it.

the difference is that I was able to sleep and rest/recover better in my 20's than i can do now at age 56.

I rode a double century (120 miles one day, 80 the next) a few years ago. Instead of being so tired i went right to sleep, i could hardly sleep. That affected my recovery to be sure, but also my resolve. I was going to finish that ride if it killed me. I was not near that tough in my 20's

[Crankin]

Same here. I could have never done what I do now on my bike in my 20's, unless I trained. I did nothing athletic until I was 24 and 25 pounds overweight. When I did ride, it was slowly and never more than 10 miles. I do need more recovery time as every year passes, but I am much tougher mentally. I just finished a 4 day tour of 150 miles, with each day having at least 2 climbs of 10-15%. None of it was flat. Now, I might not be as fast as others, but I just keep thinking that there's only about 5% or less of the women my age who do what I do.
Keep working at it!

[chicago]

I am 46... and hope to be doing this and more come 50yo!!!

I have always been athletic, but I've never had this good of time at it:D I am having some good biking fun this year... met a good biking guy who has made the summer a blast:o:D

[li10up]

I don't think I even rode a bike in my 20s or 30s. I think I put the bike away when I turned 18 and went off to college. Didn't climb back on a bike until 3 years ago. So I'm better now than when I was in my 20s!!:p

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I had a bike when I was 12-14 and I lived in the country and rode it a lot by myself and with my friends. I also sometimes rode my brother's 'fancy' Raleigh 10 speed.
After that though, I didn't even so much as sit on a bike until 3 years ago (!!), and I'm now 54 and ride frequently.

I presently live quite near where I used to ride my old bike as a teenager. The other day I rode from the center of that town I used to live in, along a little county highway to an overpass bridge. I remembered doing that ride way back then and thinking it was a huge long adventure with giant hills. Turns out it was NOTHING!- no more than a mile and no hills to speak of at all.
It's like going back to your old school and seeing how tiny the rooms and desks are, where they seemed gigantic in my memory.
I can safely say I can now ride rings around my old young self. ;)

[uforgot]

I think I ride the same. Maybe I'm in a dream word, but I also teach dance classes and I still do the same things I did when I was teaching them at 23. Works great when they whine about something and I say "Hey, if I can do it at 53 YOU can do it at 13". Tumbling, splits and all the rest. (Well, except for the toe shoes. They've been off for years) I'm waiting for it to all come crashing down.lol