Ooo-ooo-ooo: So I grew up in Fairbanks, delivered papers on foot year-round, coldest day was -65°. That's pretty cold. A tire fell off a delivery truck that day, broke when it hit the ground. Yeah, old tech probably. When I was in the Army in Germany, I had a Renault R10, fabulous car, great in the snow. One time I drove down to Davos to ski. I was a poor and penny-pinching soldier, so I spent the night in the car. It was -53°F. I had a North Face down bag with ~6" of loft. I don't think anyone makes anything like that anymore - quite light for what it was - the baffles were mosquito netting. Anyway, had a fine night. The trick is to hold absolutely still. In the morning of course the car wouldn't start - battery way too cold. So I walked into town to a service station, but no luck. The fellow told me they had a backlog of about 100 cars or so. So I walked back to the car and noticed that I was parked in a turnout and it and the road had a slight downhill. So I pushed like crazy, jumped in and put it in 2nd gear and . . .it started right up. I did go skiing, did 3 runs which involved 3 long chairlift rides and that was plenty. Didn't frostbite anything. A lot of that is knowing how to exhale. War stories.

Wonderful story. Thanks for sharing.

Quite on topic, yes? Like compared to the general population . . . We're all frigging nuts.

Well, no, in fact we're the sane ones. The rest of them are all frigging nuts.

never mind

Am told i look far younger than my age. And then there is my mental age which is regressing even faster.

Truth is...

"I Am More Beat Up Than I Look"

Always active but discovered bikes at 40. I ride but not as much and not as fast. Gave up the tandem after 30 hard years of service. I still buy, rescue, wrench and pass opportunistic bargain quality bikes to the bike coop, and am still a daily visitor to BF. I'm staying the course.

3 months shy of 80, 18 miles on the tandem yesterday and a fairly strong ride. But then my stoker is 4 years younger than I, still just a kid. I started at 50, so not as much time in grade, didn't buy the tandem until '07. She's like, "I can't ride as fast you you!" so I go "On the back if my bike you can." Thus the deal was done.

I just turned 70 in December, I started riding again 4 years ago. I’ve been riding since I was a kid, but life got in the way as did moves (military family). Once we settled here in Florida I was wanting to get back into this. Now, I’m out on my hybrid about 4 to 5 times a week. Rain is about the only thing that keeps me indoors…and the occasional hurricane. I can see myself riding into my 80’s. I want to keep the arthritis at bay, and get my weight down….this is the way to do it.

My wife and I won the 2025 USA Cycling's Masters eSports Nationals Championships - 75 and 76 years old respectively. Among the elites and masters racing categories, 20 digital jerseys were handed out and we won two. eSports is interesting and there was a substantial qualification process to get an invitation to race. Weak hands were shaken out early. I think many potential participants did not want to do the work to qualify for whatever reason and the fields were small. I think over time, more cyclists will try eSports races that feature a fairly high level of control of who can participate because it puts racers on a level playing field with oversight and rules.

How do we compare against the average population in our mid seventies? We get the same BS from Garmin saying we are 20 something years old based upon their VO2 measurement. We think that is somewhat bogus and we could improve VO2, IF we wanted to train for VO2 against their measurement system. That does not support our racing goals.

We do banded rides together on Zwift. On Sunday, we did one hour and rode z2. Generally, my wife rode at 2.2-2.5 w/kg and I did the climbs at 2.5 - 3 w/kg. Usually, we had a gang of Klingons riding our wheel. We thought the Klingons did really well. Fun ride.