I have a hard time responding to many threads in the 50+ forum and it's almost always due to the same reason. Let me explain.

Two months ago I turned 62. This summer, after some years of not riding much, I started riding again seriously, more seriously than I ever rode before. It wasn't hard. I did my personal best in mid-summer, 65 miles, beating my age at that time by 4. I wanted to do a century but events conspired against it. (And all this was after sustaining a knee injury while hiking in May which still bothers me.)

I'm not saying this to brag. There is a reason it wasn't hard. Though I am not and have never been an athlete (and never played one on TV) I have exercised almost every day for the last 35 years. I have run, done aerobics, yoga, lifted weights, canoed, hiked or just walked, or played very energetic music for an hour or more every day. For most winters my wife and I have x-c skied 4 to 5 hours a day almost every weekend. The cumulative effect of all that activity has kept us healthy and fit. So when I started biking seriously again it didn't take long for the leg muscles to respond to the new demands.

So here's the point. It is great whenever anyone takes up a new or long lost activity, biking or anything else, and goes from nowhere to leaping tall buildings. But you can't recover the "lost" years between when you were younger and now. Of course you can't turn back your own clock, you can only start from now and improve. Okay, do it!

What you can do however is encourage those around you, your children (who may now have children of their own), grandchildren, nieces and nephews, your friends, etc., to start early. It's like saving money - the sooner you start, the more you'll end up with. Help them break out of the rut into which modern society pushes us. It's a form of love. Tough love, perhaps, but love nevertheless.

I've been fortunate. I count my lucky stars that my wife encouraged us both to stay fit, eat well and carefully, etc. I was motivated too because my dad died of heart failure at 52, so I've beat him by 10 years and hope to do even better. I wonder what I'd be like now without that push. If you can push others, gracefully of course, then do it! It might be the difference for someone between already being fit at 50 and just starting to become fit at 50.

I thought hard about whether to post this. It sounds like bragging and I don't mean to. I can appreciate the accomplishments and challenges to those of you just starting a life of activity, but I can't empathize with you. However I think this message is worthwhile, worth the risk of being misinterpreted. So there it is.

Go ride a bike! Enjoy! Be or become fit! And spread the joy to others too!