I’ve been keeping a handwritten log since the late 80s. I still have them all. Although I do use a fitness app these days, I still do a handwritten log (just in case there’s a solar flare that blasts the internet and all magnetic media on Earth into oblivion). Around 2010, I decided to figure out my lifetime mileage from around 1981 when I became “a cyclist,” but not to include all the zooming around on a bike in the 60s and 70s as a kid. By the early 2000s I figured I had enough of a database in my logbooks, so I calculated my average annual mileage, and applied that distance to each year back to 1981 when I began cycling (I also did this for all my running and swimming). It’s not 100% accurate, but I think it’s pretty close. So, today, I know my lifetime mileage up to my most recent ride (or swim, or run). — Dan

my story? one of many millions... 60+ yrs daily riding since age 15, a lifetime of riding the bike... but riding can be more than just time on the bike... as it is for me... before, now and however long I can...
Inspiration?
well, THIS inspires me...
510lbs and 50+, just started riding again.
riding the bike is not just about riding, it's about what you find around you and what you find in you...
everything of value becomes more valuable than ever, when riding brings that to you...
and if you let it, it will help you find new things, great things, and sometimes difficult things which you learn to deal with.
it's all good, it's great...
Ride On
Yuri

Ok beicster , weekend’s coming up. What’s the plan? As my kid’s CC coach used to yell, “It’s supposed to hurt!”

In my 30s, joined a cycling club and developed many friends. It was always good to see familiar faces and share stories. Moved away and rode solo for many years. My motivation then was to go up the hills with less effort and go a bit faster. Now I have rejoined a cycling club and am starting to see familiar faces and am learning names and chit chatting when the moment allows - like at breaks. For me, cycling with others is more enjoyable and it makes the time and miles fly by. We had a 20 something woman join the ride, who was not a strong hill rider, and we waited for her at the tops of the climbs and gave her encouragement. She finished with the group and did just fine.

Why go it alone when you can enjoy some friendship, if there is a local club?

Here's some inspiration. My 88 y/o father with multiple health issues including Lewy Body Dementia walked 42 feet yesterday with the aid of a walker for the first time in 3 months after two hospitalizations. After watching him, I relish more bike rides before my health eventually suffers.

I usually never ride in the Winter months. I may go 5 months without getting on my bike and when I finally do get back on it sometimes feels like I'm starting all over again. But... I just start with small steps. The first couple of rides may only be 10 miles round trip. The next week I'll start doing 20 miles per ride. Then I just keep adding about 5 miles every third ride and before I know it I'm doing some respectable 45 mile rides again.

Start with small steps and try to find someone to ride with. I ride with 2 old High School buddies twice a week. Nothing fast or strenuous, but it gets me out on my bike and we have a great time. We'll be talking the whole time and before you know it we've done 20 miles and are looking for a coffee shop to kick back at before moving on. Just be sure to enjoy yourself.

I resumed cycling in 2006 at age 57 and coincidentally joined Bike Forums. I became interested in racing and hired a coach. I have been consistently training and racing for 18 years at the road and track now age 76.

When I was a kid, I found my inspiration for sports from pro athletes. For me, nothing has changed in that I still find inspiration in watching and observing pro cyclists. Today, we have a crop of juniors in my track training group and Team USA sprint team is on the track ahead of us. I find these young men and women inspirational. Why? It is the energy and enthusiasm that they have for the sport. It is addictive.

Inspiration is where you find it.

Chapeau!! I’ll take that as inspiration! As caregiver for my wife I’m not getting out for any formal aerobics beyond walking a few miles, but as the Designated Lifter, Pusher, Furniture Mover, Fixer, Shopper, Wrangler of Contractors (just got finished having a Roofer fix the house!) and Handyman.I get some anaerobic, keeping my arms and shoulders in decent tone. I’m slowly getting a bike fit right for some trainer time. I don’t in now if I have enough time in the overall time budget (72 yo now, I might or might not get to have another century in my life) to see a full day of riding again, but should be on wheels, at least, by mid August.

I’m restarting my Iyengar Yoga, starting tomorrow, I paid the teacher and everything!!

At 60 I asked myself if I would still be able to do this at 70. Well I'm 70 now and just started riding yet again, after yet another stupid injury, and sometimes I think I'll never quit. I was out this morning doing my usual 15 mile ride of loops of Prospect Park, but at a much slower pace due to the heat, and I just didn't want to stop. I kept my HR down even on the small hill, but still could pound the pedals when I wanted. My biggest worry is always my heart now, not that I've been diagnosed with any problem. I can still push 700 watts for a few seconds. Last year at about this time I was out there and a couple of racing types blew by me, so I turned it on and passed them. Still, at 70, I don't think that's happening that much anymore.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here at the computer and noticing my legs are getting hard again. I've lost weight, and lowered my BP.

.... deleted in edit....
but keep pedaling.... no matter what....

Well, funnily enough, I did not ride this weekend. I spent both days doing things around the house including installing gutters on the porch roof I built a couple of summers ago, working on cars and fixing the weed eater. Working on the cars required me to lay on the hard ground and get back up many times. While I didn't ride, I did do things like working up on a ladder that I hope riding will keep me in the condition to do for many more years. It is amazing how much crawling around under cars works the body. I used to do it with no thought. Now, I can feel it by the end of the day.

I did commute by bike all four days that I worked last week and again this morning. So, I feel good about that.

Thanks everybody for the stories. I definitely feel the inspiration I was hoping for. As I mentioned in my reply to Classtime above, I spent the weekend working around the house including installing some gutters. I want cycling to be part of an overall plan to move my body enough to be able to do that in 20 years. I know that accidents, genetics and bad luck will also play a role in how capable I am in 20 years, but I plan to control what I can control. Weight loss and movement are my two top priorities. Improving one of those should help the other.

In 2008, at 52, I started riding regularly again. The first day was an accident. My pickup battery died. Used the bike to replace it. That was in August, temps above 100F.

At that time I was logging my activities/calories. Running the numbers at the end of the day, I thought, "Wow!"

Decided to start commuting to work. 3 mi each way. Told myself if it was too hard I could stop. The opposite happened. I started riding more. Working up slowly until I was riding 10 mi weekdays, and a slightly longer ride on the weekends. That October, with the weather cooling I did my first 30+ mi ride in decades.

There's a lot of good advice above. My only advice is start slow. If 5 days a week is too much try for 3, or 2. Think about doing a weekend ride just for fun. Good luck.

.

When my career and life started slowing down enough in my early 50's I too started riding for fitness. Even just a ten mile ride was enough to have me coming home and soaking in a tub of cold water to cool off. However it didn't take too long to get use to cycling regularly and for long periods of time. I did my first 100 miler solo that same year... on a 46 lb 1979 Schwinn Varsity. I'd bought it about the time I had to stop riding regularly. And between 21 yo and 50 yo, I only used it for brief rides around the neighborhood.

The number one thing I think that helped me the most was figuring out that I had to maintain my hydration while cycling. I sweated a lot. And could loose as much as five pounds just on a ride of a couple hours in the heat of the summer. Realizing that, I began to weigh before and after a ride. And I adjusted my drinking habits to take a few gulps every 10 minutes. Eventually I started getting back from a ride with no more than pound of weight difference. Many times less. Most say they drink every 15 minutes, but I felt that I had to drink down too much if I waited that long.

Second thing that helped me the most was to realize that I had to ride at a level of effort I could maintain for the entire ride. Not maintain any particular speed.

Third thing was to realize that you shouldn't be pushing hard on the pedals when just cruising. It should be a ridiculously easy gear ratio to pedal. Back in 1969, the woman that owned the Schwinn shop and sold me one my first 5 speed derailleur equipped bikes had told me that pedaling should not be hard. Easy pedaling is better for the heart. And fast cadence with easy pedaling results in a faster speed than a slow hard cadence at 60 rpm or less.

Wow. Inspired to e-bike.

David Goggins.

I started riding at 58, and now I'm 64. Pretty much started as a couch potato. The key is consistency and pushing your limits. My belief is our bodies will adapt to whatever the load we put on them (up to a point). So, if you never push yourself, your body will adapt to what you do regularly, like your 6.5 mile commute and that will be somewhat hard to do.

Simply put, do something really hard regularly, like once a week, so the rest of the time it's not that hard. For example, an intervals session.

Push yourself regularly, and that 6.5 mile commute will become easy. Some people ramp up their ride times and efforts quite fast. But I took over a year to go from a few miles to doing a 50-mile ride. At that time I thought, maybe I can do a 50-mile ride once a month. But eventually, doing one every week became normal and just another ride. I would do weekly intervals to really push myself.

Due to family demands, I've had t cut way back on cycling this last year. What was almost trivial a year ago, is quite the workout now. I was settings PR's then that look just impossibly hard to me now. And there are rides and routes I used to do regularly, that I simply cannot do now. But once my life settles back down, and I can ride consistently again, I have no doubt I can build back up to where I was. And since I have recently started strength training, I'm hoping I might even be able to go beyond where I was before.

So, I have no doubt you can build up your fitness a lot from where you're at now.

I am not hardcore by any means. I am fine with a slow and easy pace. But I live in the hills and sometimes, no matter how small the gear, it is hard.

No question hills are the hardest thing. Where I live, most rides require dealing with several miles of 4% grade. Not steep, but not easy either, especially when new to cycling. My first rides were just riding uphill probably 1/4 mile. Then downhill to home. Progress occurred quickly. I was able to go further every ride (every other day). Since uphill was toward a mountain range, it would also get progressively steeper. On these steeper areas 6% or more gradient, I would have to stop periodically and gasp for air.

But progress continued and within a year I was making all those climbs without much thought. It doesn't mean they became stupid easy, but I didn't need to be in 1st gear all the time and no longer needed to stop mid-climb or stop at the top to catch my breath.

It was about 3 months before I dared to start a ride going downhill. I was concerned I'd go too far downhill and not be able to make it home. That was a big deal at the time. now I'm almost always doing that and more and not giving it any thought.

My suggestion is work on those climbs. My first weeks I would break up a climb into many small goals. Just looking to get to the mailbox 100 ft away, then to that large weed on the side of the road, then the patch in the pavement. Looking at a long climb can be very daunting. Just set more attainable goals. But you might be surprised how you think you can't do another 100 ft, but once you finish the last, you decide to keep going. I found this very satisfying.

I have hills too. 5 - 6% grade. And one that I rarely get to that briefly... very briefly ratchets up to 10%. So I know it can be some hard pedaling for those times. And I do know that your hills in Kentucky are probably a lot longer to pedal up than my 50 to 100 foot hills here.

Still, if your bike doesn't give you a easy gear ratio to use on the majority of the climbs you do, then you need to remember when looking for your next bike to get one that has the low gear ratios you need. Or even consider if you can change the gearing of your current bike to give you lower gear ratios. Though that might just be a change of cassettes, it also might require a change of the rear derailleur too. And sometimes that can be more expensive or even not easily possible for your bike.

And there is always your fitness level to consider before making gearing changes. When I have slacked off riding during the winter, it sometimes takes three or four months to get my legs in shape for my hills. But when my legs get their muscle back, hills that I struggled to do in the small ring are easy to do in the big ring.

It does take regular and frequent riding to stay in good shape. 3 times a week is the minimum for me. If I can ride 4 times a week, then after a month or two of that, I feel like superman!

Lots going on for me this Spring. Two kids graduated, a nephew graduated, and one kid moved away.

It was also cool and wet in the Spring so 2025 has not been nearly as consistent as 2024.

Also, Wind is much harder than hills in my opinion.

That's because you live in Iowa.

Congrats on reaching old age. Here's some motivation:

go ride bike and get fit while having a good time!!

Op says, “ I need some inspiration from some folks who hit 50 plus and then rebuilt their fitness so I will know it is possible.” AND ALSO, “I am fine with a slow and easy pace.”

As I get older, the pain part of no-pain-no-gain is seemingly more painful and avoided with less regret. So I get it. Your good.