Originally Posted by
bruce19
Got into cycling when I was about 36. In my youth I was taken up with football and baseball. Went to college on a football scholarship. At age 36 my first ride was a Century. Seriously. Got talked into it by my bro-in-law who had just run the Boston Marathon. One of us was in shape. I knew nothing about cycling. Thus the stupidity. At the end I couldn't walk for 3 days. Literally. Decided I had a choice...put the bike away forever or learn about cycling. I have no idea why but I ended up cycling. It has now been 37 years on the bike. And, at age 73 I am stronger, faster and happier than I've been in many years.
Oh dear lord, my legs ache thinking of that one. Did you ride a Schwinn Ten Speed.?
I was an avid cyclist when my friend talked me into riding a long ride. I forget what they called in then (about 40 years ago), but it was East of Sacramento. Alpine County. The first fun part was we heard a loud bang on the drive up. It sounded like a shotgun going off, middle of the night, couldn't figure it out. A while later, another loud bang. Wtf? Tires were too close to the exhaust of my rotary powered RX2. The heat of the exhaust blew out the tubes! Thankfully we had splurged for spare tubes and still had patch kits.
It was four loops. Each loop was a 50-mile round trip — lots of hills. Going up was hard work, coming down was fun but there was a cop to make sure we stopped at the stop sign (bottom on the hill) before starting back up the next road. My brakes could barely make that stop!
These days those roads are still there, but the ride is called "Death Ride." I manage four fifty mile loops and didn't move for days. It was 18 hours (we left at 3 AM, got there and changed out tubes, on on the road 5 AM. I want to think it was close to midnight by the time we finished riding. Never again. Still, I had ridden previously, but can not imagine even a flat century at the first ride. Markleeville, CA. Pretty countryside, but lots of hill climbing.
My hat is off to you for undertaking that ride as your first event. Did you talk to your brother in law in the months after that? My buddy still remembers my car that killed the tires after all these years.