Originally Posted by
McBTC
Go going back to the original article, however accurate or inaccurate it may be, it was pointed out that the longevity of cyclists is greater than that of runners... They're definitely are trade offs and some of them are hard to calculate but perhaps, 'longevity' is the final arbiter. I don't know what the statistics are but as far as actually engaging in the sport, I can imagine that there probably are greater numbers of cyclists in old age than runners...
It's a good question and since I've already posted too much, here's my two cents on this. While it HAS long been thought that running produces more wear and tear on our joints (aka osteoarthritis) and it is still the prevailing common knowledge, there are strong indications otherwise. OA refers to generally "fluid accumulation, bony overgrowth, and loosening and weakness of muscles and tendons".
With regards to statistics, runners had a lower incidence of knee pain, minor OA and serious OA than non-runners (
https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...1116094058.htm)
Here's another one, more recent
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27333572, mean age was 64, showing that runners had lower incidence of knee pain and knee problems than non-runners.
Are there more older cyclists than older runners, I don't know. But whenever numbers of cyclists comes up I tend to step back and consider triathletes - who are ALSO cyclists and whose numbers dwarf those of pure cyclists. So I'm a little skeptical that there are fewer older runners. Anecdotally, on my little stretch of shared path, my impression is about equal.