Cycling Well being Poll at 40+

[Low Gear Guy]

We had a teenager on our ride last night. It was noticable how unfit he was going up the hills where 60 year olds would leave him in the dust. I worry that the post millenial generation are not growing up with habits and routines that keep them fit and well as long as possible throughout life.

When I was younger, I was sometimes overtaken by age 60+ riders. I couldn't even blame it on electric bikes or carbon fiber.

 

[Edwardoka]

@Edwardoka - I got irritated with the lazy idiot in the car. I apologised and said that I hadn't realised that his children were disabled... He blew his top and said that they weren't (I was already pretty sure that they weren't) but how could any child be expected to walk 2 miles!

I can understand not letting youngins out on bikes with the state the roads are in, but for someone who is not impaired, a 2 mile walk is what, 30 minutes at most, 45 if you're younger or lollygagging.

A 4 year old should have no difficulty walking that distance. Denying them this exercise practically qualifies as cruelty imo.

 

[ColinJ]

I can understand not letting youngins out on bikes with the state the roads are in, but for someone who is not impaired, a 2 mile walk is what, 30 minutes at most, 45 if you're younger or lollygagging.

A 4 year old should have no difficulty walking that distance. Denying them this exercise practically qualifies as cruelty imo.

Exactly - he was effectively training his young children to be lazy, gain weight, and eventually get ill!

He told me that he had been driving up and down looking for the 'real' car park because he didn't believe that anybody would build a car park a mile away from a visitor centre. The fact that the visitor centre was on National Trust land with beautiful wooded walks leading across the hillside, babbling brooks, wildflowers, deer etc. (and the NT wanted to keep it that way!) was lost on him...

My mistake - who would want to inflict THIS NIGHTMARE on some poor children...

I had to get away from him before we got into a shouting match about it.

 

[tyred]

I can understand not letting youngins out on bikes with the state the roads are in, but for someone who is not impaired, a 2 mile walk is what, 30 minutes at most, 45 if you're younger or lollygagging.

A 4 year old should have no difficulty walking that distance. Denying them this exercise practically qualifies as cruelty imo.

I walk to work past the entrance to a housing estate and there is a school bus which stops at the entrance to collect children. Each morning I see the road at this point blocked with SUVs where fat parents drive their fat children a few hundred yards across the estate to sit with the engine running whilst waiting for the bus. Usually the bus driver cannot get pulled into the bus stop because the parents have blocked it with cars so he has to stop the bus on the main road and obstruct traffic. I observe it each morning and despair at the pointlessness of it all and feel sorry for the kids and worry about their future😢

 

[addictfreak]

Age 58 (well almost)

Medically no issues for 50 years, very rarely saw a doctor. Then totally out the blue, I suffered a Brain Haemorrhage (subarrachnoid). Spent a bit time in hospital and had the rupture coiled (endovascular). During investigations they found a second Anneurysm. So about 8 months after the initial bleed, I was in hospital to have the second anneurysm clipped, full craniotomy this time. Not only was I lucky enough to survive it all, I am also virtually back to my level of fitness prior to the event.
Neuro surgeon at the time put my recovery down the my fitness and probably a huge chunk of good luck.

 

[pbkclements]

Age 57 & for the last 15 years have used cycling (which I love) as a means to manage arthritic knee - keeping the muscles around the knee strong & seems to stop swelling on the knee. Lucky no major pains prevent me cycling & think it helps with flexibility ...

 

[Mrs M]

Almost 54
Old back injury rears it’s unwelcome, ugly head sometimes
Cycling is the best excercise for that, so the surgeon told me, so full steam ahead on the bike

 

[Mrs M]

I have a PITA on occasion but most of the time he’s ok

 

[Globalti]

Almost 64 here and no long-term problems beyond a touch of sciatica, which appears if I'm not cycling regularly. As soon as I re-start cycling it goes away, which I put down to muscle tone in the lower back.

I'm still feeling the consequences of muscle loss following the clavicle break and frozen shoulder op late '18 and early '19, I hope things will improve after retirement in July when I'm going to become a lot more active.