I love the comments I get when I wheel my bike out the door at the end of the day's work. Folks can't believe that I, at 54, am going out to ride 21 miles. Or the feeling of rolling down the street and into the driveway after a 30 mile ride just as my hung-over neighbor is going out to get his morning paper.

My father is 80 and tells me that, when he was my age, he was already an old man. The bike keeps me young. Every time I ride I prove to myself that I do not have to go gently into that good night.