Fifty Plus (50+) - Bike for Life - How to ride to be 100 ... John Sinibaldi

After reading about the book on this forum ... I purchased and read the book. I most enjoyed the article about John Sinibaldi. He was a real inspiration ...

In doing a search of bike clubs in St Pete ... I came across a note that John had passed away in January. Perhap other would care to read the post ... you will have to scroll down to it ... titled the "The Legend"

http://www.stpetecycling.com/

He was mentioned in several threads ... but none recently. It sounds as if some of you knew him and may have ridden with him.

Sounds like a wonderful man. Bicyclists, gardening (even in his 90s). He lived the life that most Americans don't aspire to - the good life.

Aaahh, Bike for Life, one of my favorite reads. Great little stories inside of a bigger story. I'd encourage everyone on this forum to read it. There's a lot of inspiration and interesting history contained within its pages.

TNX so much for sharing the information. The story of John Sinibaldi was extremely inspiring for me and the book, Bike For Life has been one of the greatest finds.

Aerobic exercise is the only known fountain of youth, and bicycling is one of the best forms of aerobic exercise.

I started reading Bike For Life this week because of the good comments made about it in this forum. Last night I read the chapter on cycling and osteoporosis which was a real eye opener.
So far I only have two complaints, would it have killed the authors to put in a couple of diagrams, especially the chapter that covered stretching. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so a few little stick figures could have added volumns to the book.
On a minor note, the authors obviously spend too much time riding and not enough watching old movies on tv, because on page 233 they quoted a line from a Clint Eastwood movie, "Man has got to know his limitations," but they credited it to one of his spaghetti westerns when everyone knows it came from one of his Dirty Harry movies. (Didn't it????)

On a minor note, the authors obviously spend too much time riding and not enough watching old movies on tv, because on page 233 they quoted a line from a Clint Eastwood movie, "Man has got to know his limitations," but they credited it to one of his spaghetti westerns when everyone knows it came from one of his Dirty Harry movies. (Didn't it????)

I don't know, I spend too much time riding my bike and on this damn forum to watch Eastwood movies.

On a minor note, the authors obviously spend too much time riding and not enough watching old movies on tv, because on page 233 they quoted a line from a Clint Eastwood movie, "Man has got to know his limitations," but they credited it to one of his spaghetti westerns when everyone knows it came from one of his Dirty Harry movies. (Didn't it????)

Yes

I was fortunate in knowing and riding with John Sinibaldi for many years. We trained together extensively. We met several times each week with a small training group. Even when he was in his mid-70s, he was a formidable sprinter. On our training rides, we had designated sprint zones. I tried everything. One time, I thought, I'll do an extended high-speed effort and kill everybody off. It worked -- on everybody except John. Just as I approached the end of the sprint zone, I saw him easing past me. His good nature, intelligence and abilities were legendary. Everybody who met him was better for it. I miss John. He was a true friend and a great champion.

:50: I just read about the book How to ride to be 100 and ordered the book. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I am 67 and that would give a few extra years. I always said I want to die at a 105 and get shot by a jealous husband

Pop's:50::love::innocent:

On a minor note, the authors obviously spend too much time riding and not enough watching old movies on tv, because on page 233 they quoted a line from a Clint Eastwood movie, "Man has got to know his limitations," but they credited it to one of his spaghetti westerns when everyone knows it came from one of his Dirty Harry movies. (Didn't it????)

Yes, and the movie was "Magnum Force". The original comment was by Hal Holbrook's character and was mocked at the end of the movie by Easwood's character.

I took up cycling so that I wouldn't spend so much time in front of the tube and know useless trivia such as this. :o

A1 book. Thought the title might be a scam but the variety of stuff in the book is amazing. The only complaint I can think of is no diagrams of the stretching exercises they talk about.

I firmly believe that folks should have elder heroes... that is those who have or are living a long life worth living. John Sinibaldi was one of my elder heroes as is Henri Matisse, Elise Boulding, and my great grandmother. It's important to have others that inspire us to be more than what we currently are.

HI,
If I can ride a bike and not be in a nursing home I would love to live to be 100, if not I'll d rather be road Kill.
Doug

I guess I have a little bit of a contrarian point of view on Bike for Life...for what it's worth. Conceptually it's a great idea; a cycling-focused book for folks looking to extend their active cycling life. It's also very densely packed, with tons of information, and the anecdotal content is a really nice, motivational departure from the formulaic content of most "exercise" books.

But this book is structurally misorganized and very poorly written. The editting is so weak that reading the text can get distracting at times. There are several portions of the book that rely on vague narrative descriptions of exercises (especially weight training or stretching) where the description is ambiguous or obtuse to the point where it makes no sense.

At least this was true for me, and I consider myself a highly experienced and self educated athlete; one that consumes a lot of exercise writing. As papedaler mentions above, the book has not a single diagram or photo set to accompany the text. In the context of describing some fairly esoteric exercises, this is a dramatic editorial oversight.

Finally, the book suffers from stylistic and typographical errors throughout, including the perpetual mis-description of at least one specific muscle group, the spinus erectors. This is the only one I mention here, but considering the importance the book places on working to protect and strengthen this muscle group, one might expect the editor to have caught this continuing error, and there are probably others that I haven't bothered to center on for this review.

As a lifelong athlete now aging, perhaps Joe Friel's book might be more up my alley. Certainly this book is useful for the 50+ cyclist looking for a life style read focused on his or her demo, but it's pretty limited by the poor editorial quality.

I don't mean this review as a criticism of anyone in the the thread that enjoyed the book. But I do a fair amount of editorial work in my profession and I grow less and less tolerant of bad work from professional writers and editors, especially when it's packaged as advice to others.

David, Seattle