In Support of 60-year old Women Everywhere

[Thorn]

Being a woman pushing toward the 60 mark, I take a little umbrage in the concept that bike planners use a 60-year old woman on a shopping trip as their target rider. Hey, I am not a fragile thing! Shouldn't they be thinking, a 40 year old pot-bellied male? Seems he would be more unlikely to be getting on a bike than a60 year old woman.

But, I digress. Justification that the analogy might be flawed hit the Milwaukee bike coordinator. During the wind storm when the die hard bikers were not to be found, but he snapped a shot of cyclist braving the wind and the cyclist was.....a 60 year old woman on a shopping run! Woohoo!

Excellent photo to be seen here (it is too large to bring into TE and, well, while I would be proud to be a role model cyclist, I don't feel right doing more than just pointing to the original)....

http://overthebarsinmilwaukee.wordpr...esign-vehicle/

[maillotpois]

What a great picture! That woman is awesome!

[hebe]

Excellent! My cycling instructor is a 60something woman, and she rocks!

[Susan Otcenas]

I'm on the board of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. It's generally thought (by the BTA, local bike planners, etc.) that women are an indicator of the health and safety of the bike network. The more women you see out there, the better the conditions are thought to be perceived by the riding public in general.

[Bike Writer]

Bravo! Hooray! That woman is my hero

[AllezGirl]

That woman on a shopping run could be a cat 1 racer in her "alter ego"! I find it funny that they don't think we can be both!

The woman who has inspired and encouraged me from the first club ride I did to where I'm at today is 59 years young! She was there the first time I got stuck at an intersection because I wasn't strong enough to turn the gear I was in to get started, to leading me out for my first podium. Multiple time medalist in the Senior Games and current PA State TT Masters Champion, she continues to be my hero.

I'm turning 40 this year. It's the first birthday I've had trouble accepting. But I have several teammates over 40...and I look at their accomplishments and I realize that age is just a number! Heck...Laura Van Gilder is 46, she's #1 in the WORLD on the UCI CX calendar. And Jeannie Longo...well, nuff said!

My personal feeling is that whether commuter, recreational, tourist, racer or whatever type of cyclist we are...women are much more 'core than men!

[marni]

she is my hero as well. Reminds me of a lot of the riding I did while living in the Netherlands, only you would have to add two saddlebags and a child in a bike seat ( no nifty trailers at that point) and the usual amount of Dutch seasonal liquid sunshine.

On the last cross country ( Southern Tier) ride I did, our oldest rider was 72 years old and she probably could have outridden us all distance wise. My favorite photo of her is after one of the longer, hotter, dustier days in Arizona when she put on her swimsuit,clogs, helmet and gloves and rode around in the rain instead of swimming, and to get the dust and grit off her bike. Miss Bee was a pip.

[PamNY]

Being a woman pushing toward the 60 mark, I take a little umbrage in the concept that bike planners use a 60-year old woman on a shopping trip as their target rider. Hey, I am not a fragile thing! Shouldn't they be thinking, a 40 year old pot-bellied male?

Thorn, I agree. The pot belly tells me a lot more about the rider than age or gender. But, I guess we have to get used to being perceived as old.

I do wonder about the author saying riding in such wind was "super fun." True, it can be, but in a storm of historic proportions, biking could be dangerous.

Still, it's a cool photo and I'm glad you posted it.

[Thorn]

Just reviving the thread to say, that "part II" of the blog posting features our own SusanO! Much to my surprise, yesterday morning's Milwaukee Bike blog sent me over to....Team Estrogen. Cool!

http://overthebarsinmilwaukee.wordpr...very-high-70s/

[Biciclista]

That lady isn't 60. I'm going to be 60 in November... I don't look like that!

[goride]

That lady isn't 60. I'm going to be 60 in November... I don't look like that!

That was my exact first thought - she's not 60, I'm 60 and I don't look like that.

[boulderbee]

I joined a couple of weeks ago, and have looked around a bit. I'm very much a newbie (my only other bike, a Motobecane, I got in the mid 70s, I've moved so many times I can't remember what happened to it, and I haven't ridden in decades) and as this thread addresses 60 year old women it struck me that it might be time to dip my nearly 60 yr old toe in.

I recently acquired my lovely new bicycle (seen in the avatar) to replace my departed dead car. Yes, I am sans car now, have been commuting 8 miles a day on my Public bike, schlepping groceries and feeling pretty good as a result of all this. When the car died I thought my life couldn't get much worse, but it turned out to be a timely and much needed metamorphosis.

Boulder is rife with bikers, mostly lycra clad and whizzing past me on spidery racing bikes - the city has miles of bike lanes, fun to explore. I'm so glad to have been forced by circumstance into a new world. I'm happy to have found this little enclave and look forward to learning from what is clearly a treasure trove of hard-earned and valuable experience.

I gotta say though - I too look nothing like the woman in that picture. Give me another 20 years and I might come close.

[OakLeaf]

Kudos to her for riding in that wind - and to the blogger for noticing.

I'm curious about the ones who think she "doesn't look 60." She could be a good-looking 70 or 75, for sure, but she'd be in darn good shape for that age, I would think. To me, the last nine years have been exceptionally stressful and it's possible I've aged more rapidly than I ought, but if I age as much in the next nine years as I did in the past nine, I'll look quite a bit like her ...