yesthatsteve

Hi everyone, I'd like to start by thanking everyone on BF and in this sub-forum for helping convince me to get back on a bike. I'm 45 years old, 5'11" and 255 lbs, and haven't been on a bike since my early 20s. My lovely wife (an Athena herself) and I had talked about biking for a couple of months, and browsing the forums here gave me some solid advice and the inspiration to do it.

Ten days ago, I picked up a cheap, used MTB, the Clyde "test-the-waters" standard, it seems. It's a 1990 or 91 Gary Fisher Advance with most of the original Shimano Exage 500LX componentry, and it's in pretty fair shape. I'll do as much of my own maintenance and repairs as I can, with Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance ordered and on the way.

My purchase was enough to prompt my wife and MIL to buy Trek 7100s for themselves as early Mother's Day gifts, because they didn't want to miss out on the fun.

Today was my first ride over 5 miles, 5.6 at a nearby state conservation area that has about 16 miles of bike-accessible roads & trails. Before that, my longest ride was 3.7 miles, yesterday - everything else has been 2 miles or less. Frankly, I'm surprised at how good I feel. Soreness in the legs and butt has been pretty mild, and minimal rubbing in the groin area thus far.

Thanks again for this forum, and your stories of triumphs and setbacks. They've convinced this middle-aged fat guy that he can do this.

Street Pedaler

Welcome. Good enough that you've started back yourself but it seems that you have some built in ride buddies as well. Awesome.

PhotoJoe 

Congrats. You all have taken the first step. Isn't it amazing how quickly you improve. And in my opinion, it's a snowball effect. The better you feel, the more you want to ride, which makes you feel better.........

And if you get involved here, post about your journey, ask questions, share insights, brag about your progress....you will end up convincing some other "middle-aged fat guy that he can do this" too!