Why older women shouldn't cycle

[PamNY]

I biked up to photograph hawk babies today, which involved lots of fiddling with camera and bags and rolling up and down of arm coolers.

As I started to come home, I realized I was wearing just one glove. Odd, since I don't normally take them off. Guessing I had absent-mindedly removed it, I looked everywhere -- and no glove.

No glove until I came home, that is, and found the missing glove on the floor. It's not as bad as forgetting a helmet, I guess, but putting on one glove?

I can't really blame age, as I went to work in mismatched shoes one morning when I was around 32 years old.

[lauraelmore1033]

Sounds like something I HAVE done!

Hubby and I had stopped at a little country store during the RSVP ride and I had taken my back pack off to get arm coolers out. We made our obligitory purchases and used the rest rooms and then we were off again. 5 miles away from the store we encounter a climb and I'm thinking: man this is pretty pleasant without that hot, sweaty square on my back from the pack.....ACK!! Honey, where's my back pack! with my passport, license, credit cards, cash, everything in it???!! That was the fastest 5 miles I have ever ridden, back tracking to that little store. DH got there first and found it,unmolested on the news paper dispenser, with the locals all sitting out in front of it. Pheww!
Did I learn my lesson?

NOOOO!

The next morning I left my gloves on the newspaper box in front of Starbucks while I was compusively checking and rechecking to make sure I had the back pack. Five miles out, I'm noticing that my hands feel a little cooler than I'm used to. DH growls that the gloves can just damn well stay where they are.

[marni]

I have yet to make it out on a ride without at least 2 trips back to gather forgotten gear. Most often it is my helmet and or glasses, which is really bizarre since my helmet lives on the handlebars, and I am blind without the glasses.

sigh......Most days I really miss my brain.

[OakLeaf]

I got called for jury duty last year, and I left my jacket at the courthouse. So the next day I decided to ride up and get it (around 45 mile RT). I picked up my jacket and left my Garmin on the counter. Went back, picked it up, and then left my wallet in the restroom.

I am so lucky I didn't lose anything valuable on that trip to pick up a $50 jacket.

[Bruised&Happy]

LOL, great stories! I'm so glad I found this forum!

[lauraelmore1033]

So it's not a memory problem, it's a newspaper box obsession!

Well THAT is just a load off my mind!!

[uforgot]

Well, I'm feeling a lot better. This stuff is just normal! Whew!

[Bike Chick]

And I thought it was just me I've been blaming the head injury I sustained a few years ago!

[Chile Pepper]

CRS runs deep in our family.... Cant Remember Sh!t.

Ah ha! Finally--a diagnosis! I've been a sufferer since my first pregnancy. I clearly remember the first time I found myself standing in front of the coffee pot and could not for the life of me recall why I was there (no, not coffee).

[PamNY]

If one of my birding friends asks "Did you find your glove?" I'm not going to tell the truth.

I guess saying "Oh, I finally realized where I dropped it" isn't exactly a lie.

[bjoyful]

Thank you so much for starting what turned our to be a very humorous look at ourselves! I am recovering from a total knee replacement and looking for some comments relating to recovery time and getting back on the bike, etc. but the humor was very much appreciated!!

[Bruised&Happy]

Hey, I saw a glove on the road the other day! Must have been one of us that "dropped" it??

[beccaB]

Ah ha! Finally--a diagnosis! I've been a sufferer since my first pregnancy. I clearly remember the first time I found myself standing in front of the coffee pot and could not for the life of me recall why I was there (no, not coffee).

Studies at a renowned Israeli university show that women who have recently given birth become like animals, relying on instinct and not intellect.One example is an experiment that had women get blindfolded and they had to do a sniff test to determine which t- shirt belonged to their baby. They were 100% accurate. I would assume then that as long as we are mothers, instinct takes over. Now I have a reason for my damaged human intellect. I did, after all, give birth only a little over seventeen years ago!

[blackhillsbiker]

I got home the other evening (after a quick stop at my LBS) to find I didn't have on my sunglasses. Funny, I never even noticed I wasn't wearing them. I was sure I had them on when I left work, so I called the LBS to see if I had left them there. Nope. I called my boss. He said, "Yep. They're on the table next to the door." I hadn't even put them on to go home. (Slaps forehead with palm.) These things are happening more and more often.

We went to the fair the other evening. I filled my water bottle and told DH I was ready to go. I got in the car. No water bottle. Somewhere between the kitchen and the back door is a vortex into which things fall and never return. We searched everywhere in the house and the car. I even replaced it, since that usually makes things turn up. Still no water bottle.

Deb

[Crankin]

I don't know, I think "forgetfulness" is more of a personality trait that some of us have and some don't, not related at all to gender, childbirth, or age in many cases. That "CRS" trait that Syndirelah talked about runs deep in my DH's family. Both my kids have serious short term memory issues, yet they are fully functioning adults because, mostly, they have developed strategies so this doesn't interfere with really important stuff at work or home. DH has it, too. He was reduced to tears from being angry at himself for losing the sunglasses he bought on our trip in Spain, about 30 minutes before we left for our son's wedding. This was the third pair of glasses he had lost in 4 weeks. He hates that he passed on this trait to our kids.