Originally Posted by
Rogan
My thoughts are that you are only as old as you think you are. I am going to be 66 at the end of the year and just took up cycling a few months ago. I am currently riding twenty miles after work Monday through Friday. Then more miles, albeit at a slower pace, on the weekend.
I took up cycling for almost the exact reasons you state. Too many of my friends and acquaintances were having bypass surgery, heart attacks, stents and two of them with strokes. Weight loss was a side benefit of cycling for heart health. Once I realized I was losing weight I changed my diet to a healthier one and have lost twenty pounds. I am now at my doctors recommended weight.
In the beginning of my cycling a bunch of my neighbors kept hollering at me to slow down before I had a heart attack. There was no convincing them I was doing this to hopefully avoid a heart attack.
That was something that prompted this post. I was on a 72 mile Birthday ride with a good friend of mine. (His birthday) we stopped for water replacement at the 50 mile mark and a well intentioned man man walked over to us just to talk. He was surprised we had decided to ride that far, we do several centuries a year anyway, and began to regale us with stories of friends that fell over dead from heart attacks running, playing tennis and yes cycling. He may have been in his mid 50s and looked every year of it. No he wasn't overweight but I didn't see any tone to his muscles at all. we thanked him for his concern and continued on.
