Originally Posted by cyclintom

I'd like to relate a story to you people since I see you each commending yourselves for riding.

When I was racing sailboats many years ago in the late 70's before I came back to riding bicycles I used to exercise by jogging on one of the paths that ran along San Francisco bay. I could BARELY do 2 miles and it would kill my legs.

One day as I was jogging along I saw this old guy, maybe 60, riding an old fat tire Schwinn curved top tube type of bike on the adjacent bike trail. He was riding VERY slowly. Although I was a pitifully slow runner because of the pain it always gave me, I easily overtook and passed him.

I noted that he was really old looking. His skin was sagging and grey and the look in his eye was that hypnotize stare that I saw in cancer wards so many times.

After I got out a mile and started back I passed him going in opposite directions. He REALLY looked bad.

After a couple of days of this I slowed up as I caught up to him and almost walking I jogged along with him and asked him some questions.

It turned out that he had advanced emphasema and the doctors had given him 6 months or less to live. He said he wasn't going without a fight and had stoppd smoking and gotten this Schwinn from somewhere.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months he started looking better and better. His skin started turning flesh colored again. His eyes were losing that 1000 yard stare. He was able to ride along at the same speed I could jog.

Eventually I got into cycling and started spending more and more of my time on the bike and less and less on the sailboats. Eventually I hardly ever got out to that path anymore.

About 10 years later I was riding along near where that path was and there was a guy on a bike about a half mile ahead. It took a little to catch up to him and sure enough - it turned out to be our dead-in-6-month guy. He looked good. He had a SMILE on his face. His complexion was normal and the wrinkles had mostly disappeared. He had beaten the odds if not the final cost of his years of smoking.

But if it wasn't for his fighting attitude and that bicycle he'd have been in his grave long since. He's probably dead now. He'd be in his late 70's I expect if he was still alive. But he got something that was lost back again.

So when you think that you're accomplishing something (or not) by riding your bike 5 or 6 or 10 miles and you're looking for a little compliment that isn't forthcoming: If you feel like you're not a REAL(tm) bicycle rider because others can ride a century without whining just remember - you cycle for yourself and not for someone else.

You're the one that has to take a proactive position on your own health and if someone else laughs that you're not good enough so what? Haven't we all been guilty of being blockheads now and again?

I never was able to run a 9 second 100. I could never even pole vault 10'. But I found that as long as I persisted I kept getting better and better at cycling.

And you can too.