Dave Cutter

I'd quit cycling and walked away from my Schwinn Varsity, in the '60s when I got a driver license. Then re-found cycling very briefly in the 80s and again in the 90s. After I retired 7 years ago I quit smoking and bought a used bike to deal with health issues.

I now ride a solid 2K miles a year and own several bikes.

DanWho

I rode all through high school. Got my first real bike when I was 13. I was delivering newspapers and saved my money. I got a used Ihot racer. I rode that poor bike to death. At 13 I was 6 foot tall and played baseball, basketball, tennis and football. Even when I bought a car the only time I used it was when I went out of town. After high school I went to the Army and that was the end of my riding.
2012 was the year I should have died according to the doc. One heart attack, 2 surgeries for cancer later and a year later I hopped on a trek 7200 and thats all she wrote. Then I got a recumbent and got rid of the uprights I had gotten because I didn't ride them any more. That was at age 53.
I went from 352 when I started riding down to 299, then while working last October I made scrambled eggs out of my knee. By February of this year was back up to 311 because I couldn't do too much and wasn't planning on getting much riding in until summer because of the pressure a recumbent could put on the knee. While cruising craigs list I found a guy that was selling a nearly brand new Redline d660 which I bought. He rode it one time and didn't like the seat. So right now I am riding it and taking it real easy. Today I went for a 4-5 mile jaunt which took me forever but felt great. My GF keeps telling me I'm NUTS, to which I reply "only a little bit". I am going to loose enough weight that I can start riding a racer again and still keep some skinny tires on it.
My GF says N+1 doesn't happen again until she gets N which has to be a trike due to balance problems she has so I've been cruising craigslist again. Maybe N+1 will be a trike like hers?

B. Carfree

All these stories remind me of an old family friend. He died of lung cancer back in the '80s after a lifetime of smoking and drinking. On his death bed, he declared (like so many others), that if he had only known how awful it would be, he would have never smoked that first cigarette. Fortunately, you all have made the change before the grim reaper got his claws into you prematurely.

Lucky me, I always knew how awful it would be to deal with the consequences of being sedentary. The result is that since a very early age, my bikes have been my primary means of transportation. Sure, it has sometimes meant having to plan a little more and having to take the available routes into account when considering various jobs or homes, but I have never regretted a single bike ride. There's some I don't want to repeat, but I don't regret any of them.

JimF22003

I rode in high-school in the early 70's. Really caught the bike boom fever. Had a beautiful Frejus with Campagnolo components that I'd love to have back

Didn't ride for many decades after that. My weight had gotten up to about 475 pounds by the time I was 46. 12 years ago I began losing weight, but didn't start riding again until I got down to 250 or so. Started on a hybrid, but quickly moved back into the road bikes. So I guess it's been about 10 years of pretty consistent riding.

I'd sure love to have those "lost decades" back though...

tg16

Both and let me correct my statement...I now have another obsession.

Gerryattrick

I had my first bike at 11 years old and rode quite a lot till my early 20s. Then marriage, kids, work, changing towns, and other sports got in the way and cycling got left behind.

Roll on nearly forty years and I was going through a bad time with my wife in hospital for nearly a year so I thought I'd try riding again to pass the long hours between hospital visits. I think it stopped me from sliding into depression.

That was when I was 62, and six years on my wife has made a full recovery - and I'm retired and still riding, plus I volunteer at a community bike workshop.

I sometimes wonder about those "missing" cycling years, but I can't honestly say that I regret them as I have so many good memories and experiences from playing a lot of other sports. I'm cycling now and that's what matters, but, who knows, I may take up Rugby again when I'm 70.

wphamilton

I probably had about 100,000 miles on motorcycles from the time I was 15, maybe more, but the last time I rode I destroyed the bike. That was in my mid-30's. Since then I've often wanted one, and I'm not afraid of riding, but somehow I've never replaced it or even test-rode another motorcycle. Maybe I feel like I've used up my allotment of luck or divine providence that one time ... but looking back it's hard to understand how I waited another 20+ years after that to try a bicycle again!

Oldguyonoldbike

Like everyone I knew I rode a lot as a kid -- a Schwinn Stingray to grade school everyday and then a JCPenney 10-speed in high school. When I got my driver's license I stopped. I commuted by bike for three or four years in the early 90s, which led to a decent mountain bike and then a nice road bike and cycling became a form of stress relief after separation and divorce in 2001. It also convinced me to quit smoking. A new (and much better) marriage, a second round of kids and the total upheaval of my life in the wake of the financial crisis led to a pause of about seven years.

This time around has been very different. In 2013 at age 51 I bought my first brand-new bike, a Raleigh Rx 2.0, and realized that I had let myself get really out of shape. A five-mile ride felt like a great accomplishment. Two years later I weigh 165 lbs., what I weighed in college, feel better than ever and hope to ride 3000 miles this year. For me the difference of being 50+ is that cycling has become an obsession and it never was before.

Carbonfiberboy 

I was somewhat obsessed with biking at a kid - rode everywhere, had a road bike in college. Then didn't ride again until I was 50. Got obsessed again.

tarwheel 

I rode a lot in grade school, high school and college. After graduating, I continued riding a lot and rode some bike tours but mostly quit riding about age 30 due to job pressures, moving to a more urban area and having a child. Started again about age 45 and soon was riding more than ever. I rode about 1,200 miles in 1999 and more than 7,000 miles in 2000. Since then, I've ridden more than 5,000 miles every year and have topped 9,000 miles the past two years. I started bike commuting in 1997, and that has really increased my riding -- accounting for about half of my total miles since then.

bobcat71

I'll jump on this list. Rode into my 30s, when kids and jobs robbed me of riding time. Then cancer. Finally, 4 years ago, age 67, weak and wobbly from chemo, I climbed on the biggest bike that didn't intimidate me - a 24" Townie. First ride was 3 miles, followed by a loooong nap. I've just purchased a 26" with 21 speeds, and second to breathing, it is my favoritism thing to do. Hoping to be on 2 wheels for the rest of my life. Yes, they call me crazy, but I've got the biggest smile around.

DBrown9383

I just started riding again two weeks ago at age 58.. I don't think I'd been on a bike since 1973. It was actually my wife's idea to buy bikes. I was against it as I have a motorcycle I love to ride. Well now I look forward to riding the bicycle more than the motorcycle and we are already doing 20mi. rides. I can't believe how fast this bicycle bug has bitten. I want to ride all the time now but my wife wants perfect weather and a scenic bike path or she isn't really interested. The neighbors think I'm some kind of nut as I go around the block over and over again. I'm already drooling over a better bike as we bought cheap Schwinn hybrids

tigat

From spring 1984, when our first son was born, to the fall of 2010, a few years after our youngest learned to ride a two wheeler and got booted off the trail a bike, 300 miles on a bike was a good year.

Every other year or so, I'd uncouple the trail a bike, or jettison the infant seats that used to grace the front and back, and go for a "real" ride, just me and my 27 pounds of chrome covered steel and increasingly finicky Campy NR group set (patent 1974). After 20 to 30 miles of freedom, I'd congratulate myself on still "having it" and promise myself to do it more often.

Now, cycling is virtually a daily pleasure, or twice a day when I commute.

Every once in a great while, I experience pangs of regret for the lost years, the years when I could have been meeting other cyclists, exploring the wonders of the roads and trails so near at hand, and enjoying the strength and endurance that my 58 year old muscles will never recapture.

Greatly overweighing that is the joy of rediscovering this wonderful pastime. Regardless of our age or circumstance, that to me is the cool thing we all can share.

tsl

Somehow I've missed this thread for over ten days.

I gave up cycling at age 14. My dad is a big, powerful guy, and I am the antithesis. He always bought me bikes like the ones he liked as a kid--single-speed gaspipe cruisers that weighed 50 pounds or more. And he always bought them a size or two too large so I "grow into it". I hated the bikes--everyone else had Sting-Rays--and I could barely pedal the things on level ground. Climbing meant walking. There was too much bike and not enough boy.

So it's no surprise that the first bike I bought with my own money was a Kawasaki. I never looked back. Until...

I moved to the city from the suburbs in the autumn of 1996. Car ownership became a hassle PDQ. By the spring of 1999, well I was actually relieved when the city towed it away. I did not bail it out. Although I didn't know it was called that, I was car-free. I used shoeleather and the bus until early 2006 when they changed the fare structure so that city users subsidized suburban users. It essentially doubled my costs and rubbed me the wrong way.

Three days before the fare increase kicked I rolled out of the LBS on a shiny new hybrid. I took to cycling immediately, despite the handicap of being a sedentary smoker for the previous 35 years. The only drawback was how much the hybrid reminded me of those heavy gaspipe cruisers. Riding it was like wearing concrete overshoes.

Nine months later, I bought my first roadie. I haven't looked back. All my bikes now are variations on the roadie theme. I've become a climber. I ride in all four-seasons, no matter the weather. (My ancestors did without traveling in a climate-controlled bubble, so it's no surprise that I can too.) Nine years later, (or 16 depending on how you count) I still don't own a car.

Willbird

I have been 3 times an adult cyclist. Once early/mid twenties, steel frame stem shift "10 speed" that my sister left when she moved out of home :-).

Second time lost my drivers license, got clean and sober, worked up to a Bianchi Premio and a century...1992.

Third present and forever time was at 49, 6-1-2014...3000-4000 miles now, minus 120+ lbs.....Fuji Sportiff 1.5 at present....50th Birthday was 12-1-2014 :-).

Bill

RideMyWheel

I rode a lot of miles on a road bike from 1974-79, but then I got a got a truck and thought I never wanted to pedal again.

Bought another bike at Wal Mart in 1986, rode it a bunch for two years or so, then the career, a relapse with cigarettes, and building a house killed my desire to ride.

My father-in-law gave me his bike in 1998, so I took it, put it in the barn, and never thought about it again. While cleaning out the barn a year ago this week, the mechanic in me decided to tune up that bike. Of course, the only way to test a tune up is to ride it, and I got hooked again. So I bought a good road bike in June, and I've been riding ever since.

I'm 50, by the way.

pbass

I've almost always HAD a bike of some sort, save for a few stretches w/o, but I didn't really get "serious" about it until age 50. I had purchased a road bike and was just starting to get into it(was still mostly a gym rat), and then I had a hernia, and then the surgery to repair it. Cycling was one of the only things I felt comfortable doing w/the hernia, and also one of the first things I felt safe/good about doing post-surgery. I'm quite certain it really sped up my recovery. I then bought my first mountain bike at 52, and have since given up road altogether( I realized I hate riding in traffic). I now mountain bike 3-4 times a week on a rigid single speed 29r that I acquired late last year and am more hooked than ever. Will be 55 in a couple weeks. I plan to ride rigid ss mtbs until I simply can't move anymore!

jskash

I rode a bike to school all the way through junior high, and rode a bike to work in the 80's when I didn't have a car, but school and work were less than 2 miles away. I started cycling for fun three years ago at 55 and probably rode more in one month than I had the entire time I rode to school and work. I am still surprised by how much I have enjoyed cycling and how I look forward to my morning ride every day.

Outnumbered

Started riding again 2 years ago at 56 after 30 years off. Commute to work 11 miles each way down to 24 degrees after that it's starting to feel too cold. The more I ride the more I want to ride.

AlmostTrick

I never quit riding but did have many lean years. When I started cycle commuting to work (year round) 10 years ago at age 44 that all changed. I also quit smoking at 29 and took up Tae Kwon do. I'm now 54 and still train in TKD every week.

I was born with a skinny gene and at 5' 7", I am presently at my all time high... 135 pounds.

jwalther

Logged about 2000 miles in in 2014 in my first full year back on the bike after a good twenty five year layoff at age 51. I hope to double that this year.

ddeand 

Been biking on and off since I was five years old. But never climbed on a mountain bike until I was 65 a couple years ago. Now, I have two mountain bikes, a CX bike, and a vintage road bike, and I try to ride at least three times a week as well as commute to work once or twice a week.

FBOATSB

I am now 59 years old. Rode a lot growing up. Bought a new Schwinn gas pipe "ten speed" in 1981 and never rode it, it was forgotten about languishing in various barns or basements. Had life saving spine surgery in June 2014 (already told that story in an old post) and will have partial foot,ankle,leg atrophy for a couple years if I'm lucky. Went for a ride today for the second time since surgery and almost fell twice-still have balance issues. Managed a couple miles but still a menace to public safety, it's like riding with no feeling in one leg. I will stick to a regimen on the indoor machine probably forever but am doggedly determined and even obsessed to become proficient again on the road. My wife thought my riding a bike again was the dumbest idea ever but I think has since recognized my determination as a positive thing. I'm in the process of converting the bike to a more upright position hopefully to increase safety. I won't quit.

Bob Ross

It would be disingenuous of me to claim I didn't start riding until middle-age, but I didn't start riding "seriously" until I was ~45.

Prior to that I was a casual, infrequent Utility Cyclist. Started at age 7, really never stopped: Commuted to school or work on occasion, ran errands, sometime toodled around the park or down to the beach. Probably put in more miles the year I turned 45 than I had amassed in the previous 10 or 20 years though.