What do you find hardest about cycle touring now we aint spring chickens any more?
 

At 66 I'm still doing long distant cycletouring and find the riding no problem. What I find hardest is getting up off the ground after spending the night in a tent.
My last tour across Australia I took a fold up chair for my breaks during the day but in the morning - well that's hard work. Plus not to be bashful the night time bathroom calls all entail getting vertical.
But it wont stop me touring .

So what do you find has started getting harder?

unfortunately, you pretty well nailed it. I'm buying a Hennessy Hammock to, hopefully. reduce some of the discomforts you mentioned.

Marc

Off the bike my knees are not as strong.

Tent sleeping is still good for me.

I've been thinking "cot tent"

Great idea....but the 25 lbs would be a bit heavy for me.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=352269

These days my ideas of roughing it when touring is a Motel 6. Hot showers and real beds are no longer optional.

I read a crazy guy blog of a couple pulling trailers with recumbent trikes using these. If it is not too hilly, it would be a nice piece of equipment!

Looks nice. If only they could cut the weight in half.

I can relate and this year we didn't even bring tents on our tour around Lake Champlain. Cheap motels and B&Bs. Really cheap motels that I would never consider staying with my wife. But plenty good enough for bike touring. A hot shower and not sleeping on the ground has it's worth.

Credit Card touring is the way to go at my age....65 next week.

I like to sleep under the stars...5 of them at most...:roflmao2:
After many years of military service and sleeping on cold ground in a tent, sometimes in minus 40 temperatures (C and F are the same at those temps), these days a hot shower and a bed in a building are necessary...

And we have a winning answer! :cheers:

The ground seems harder than it use to be, plus it is farther down (or up) than it was forty years ago.

I can sleep on the ground just fine, but hauling it on the bike is my issue. Last 500 mi tour my daughter drove the van with support & supplies. The wife refused to allow me to go by myself.

After my wife and I retired, the hardest thing for us on a tour was to end it! On almost every tour we've ever done, we always wanted to keep going, and not end it. Since retiring, this is no longer an issue, and it makes ending a tour even harder. Sometimes we'll come up with plan B just to extend our planned tour.

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/y...42af5fae95.jpg

I didn't start touring until I retired, so it's all the same to me. I've been backpacking with my wife for 40 years, though. That's maybe gotten a little harder, or maybe we've just gotten lazier, probably a good thing. Recovery isn't quite what it used to be, but good enough. We've dealt with getting weaker by spending money on going lighter, so that's kind of a wash. We've done something similar with biking: as our power has declined, we've lost weight, so our speed is holding the same or maybe increasing.

As far as the ground goes, we bought Thermarest Neoair mattresses, both lighter and more comfortable, and we've gone to a Feathered Friends double bag that's just a down bag on top and a flocked nylon sheet on the bottom with pockets for the Neoairs. Again, both lighter and more comfortable.

As far as the rest of the BS goes, we simply fight it off by going to the gym, riding hard, eating well, and whatever it takes to not have things go wrong with us. So far that's worked. We figure with any luck we should be able to keep it up until we're 80, just not as fast and therefore not so far. Hub and spoke tours are probably in our future, but are a ways out yet.

I've only been riding a bike 3 seasons and am now 75 yo. I stretch regularly and have for quite a few years so I am quite limber. Stretching costs nothing and the benefits seem to be well documented. My purpose in stretching has been to maintain maximum mobility, which it has, but I find it feels good. Where I do experience difficulties is in recovery after a long ride but this is getting better slowly. These days I do 50 to 60 mile rides with one or two days where I need to rest up

Can you recommend a routine?

Some of the stretching is from yoga books and are aimed at loosening up those areas on me that seem to tighten up most often. This amounts to calves, hamstrings and lower back which is troublesome If I'm if I'm careful with it. So my routine may not work well for someone else. I spend 10 minutes first thing in the morning and if riding a lot as during summer months, I stretch also during the day. Now some people, such as those doing a full yoga routine don't focus on any particular area of the body. They stretch everything over a much longer period of time but they have a different goal. My goal is to maintain mobility and reduce the amount of groaning when getting out of a chair.

I find that I have the same problem today as I did thirty-five years ago: days three and four. Those have always been the days that everything just plain hurts. After that, it's all good.

I have found that I am happier carrying less gear than I used to comfortably haul. We even did a credit card ride from Seattle back home to Eugene last year, which was a first for my wife and me. Worryingly, she really enjoyed doing it that way.

How do you haul those bags on the bike mile after mile is beyond me . Good for you and your wife be able to do this . I certainly can not see myself do it day after day for weeks on end . I can not even haul my own ass up some of the hills here . :cry:

Pack a credit card . . . stay in a warm and dry motel/hotel/hostel.

Glaucoma , and the VA, international shipping wont work

Prescriptions for medications are shipped only to a Home address.

So wont be sending it abroad, and the biannual checkups to keep my Vision..

so I Live where other people Tour..

I do a deep obeisance 4x every day and it has done wonders for my back and the flexibility of my trunk. It takes all of about 5-10 minutes.
I've never really had back problems but in the last few years I have noticed some stiffness and ache. All that is gone now.

Great replies guys and good to see so many of us still heading out. I admit that given a choice it's a bed every time, whatever the motel is. However, what concerns me is often the distance might just be too much and therefore having a tent with me is my only option. Plus I still like remote area touring and plan to cross Australia again with 100's of miles between anything. So maybe I'll look at some of those ideas thanks.