Bob Nichols

I don't have a goal of doing a century or riding my age - I just like riding my bike. I ride to work which is only about 3 miles. The farthest I've been from home is 10 miles. Riding any farther is work.

donheff

You are not alone, even here. I have riden my age but not a century and have no interest in doing so. My wife and I typically ride 25-30 miles, often with a mid-way stop for lunch or breakfast. We ride for fun, not with specific training goals in mind.

NOS88

Donheff is correct. There are those who are not goal oriented in terms of miles, centuries, races, etc. I do have two goals: 1. Ride as often as I can. 2. Have fun while riding.

cplager

It's much more important to enjoy cycling than it is to reach goals like riding a century (or your age). If what you're doing makes you happy, keep doing that.

big john

Actually, on this forum you are in the majority. Now HTFU.

stapfam

I enjoy riding but also like to use it to keep the fitness that I have.

Used to do the harder rides in my Youth but about 6 years ago decided that at 60- I had done enough. Rides now may be up to 60 miles but prefer just to use the bike to pop down to my favourite cafe for Coffee and cake- or bun- or Pie and that is around 20 miles or so. Given up riding with others as I prefer to do it at my pace and enjoy the ride.

But there are still those Metric centuries and 100 milers that I enjoy doing- Providing I have got enough Pie rides in to be fit for them.

leob1

If you enjoy what you are doing, you have reached your goal.

Rwc5830

+1

Dudelsack 

Too type A here. I'd do the PBP if ihad the time to train for it.

CommuteCommando

That was me when I started five years ago. Now I have such goals, one is to ride my first C on my birthday in October. Nothing wrong with either philosophy, IMO. Wife thinks I’m nuts, but I just tell her to be glad my mid life crises has me buying $2k bikes, and not a $60k Corvette.

David Bierbaum

I had a goal, but I achieved that goal as soon as I started riding my bicycle again. Now I don't have goals, so much as I have desires. I want to go new places and see new things on my bicycle, while listening to the birds and the frogs and the brood 2 cicadas, and listening to the breeze through the trees, and seeing the sun burst through the clouds along the Mississippi...

The bicycle is my ticket to adventure, and to that peaceful easy feeling one get's, being close to nature and the great outdoors.

Shp4man

I'm a casual rider, too. I prefer flat ground and a tailwind. An easy 20MPH! I no longer care if riders pass me.

Dudelsack 

I'm too old to have a mid-life crisis.

marmot

I rode my age. It was easy. Of course, I was 12 at the time.

Anyway, Bob, you're not the only one. I do a lot of mileage, but it's all just for fun -- no epic voyages. I do most of my grocery shopping on the bike, and shop at stores in neighboring towns when I have the time, just for the enjoyment of riding. I often spend a whole day just meandering around on my bike. I don't have a computer so I don't keep track of distance, speed etc.
My immediate goal is to ride to my fishing cabin, about 30 miles away, and spend the night or the weekend. If I feel like it and the weather's good, I'll ride back. Otherwise, I'll hitch a ride in the family van.
You can benefit greatly just by riding as often as you can, with or without grand ambitions.

B. Carfree

I also just like to ride my bikes. However, I have always made enough time to ride that I often find myself doing self-supported double centuries. I don't worry about power or speed, but I do enjoy the ride more when I ride near my limit. (I accepted the fact that that limit is a lot slower now than it was in my youth, but it feels just as wonderful.) There's just something magical about suddenly realizing you are many miles away from the last place you were paying attention.

Every ride is joyous. Now make me drive a car, and that is what I consider to be unpleasant work.

Mobile 155

I believe you are in the majority Bob. But I think you miss the idea that many of us started just where you are. Just as many are still just where you are. But it is a process as much as an attitude. What happens during that process is some people discover they enjoy riding more than they thought they would. Some discover they can ride farther than they thought and they enjoyed it. Some find they can climb hills they never thought they could and it gave them a sense of accomplishment. (I hate hills but they are between me and where I want to go.) And then there is the group mentality. I don't do that many centuries but I would have to miss Palm Springs and the carnival attitude of 9500 other cyclists. (Picture a day when you do your commute and the majority of your fellow commuters are cyclists.) It has gotten to the point where I enjoy riding my bicycle about as much as I do anything else. To the point that I have started planning vacations that will also allow me to take my Bike. But cycling is like anything else. You can use you bike a little or use it a lot. The majority use it a little and that doesn't diminish their position as a cyclist.

Retro Grouch 

Trust me, you have tons of company.

What some people lack in common sense they make up for with enthusiasm. This is an enthusiast forum.

jdon

I always suspected I was a minority. I just didn't know how.

shadoman

Ride only as long/far/much as it remains fun.
THen , pie.

Retro Grouch 

You have to be careful with comments like that.

I used to manage the finish line for a large triathalon. As soon as the event was over every year, the fellow who coordinated the whole event would fly off somewhere and ride his bike until it stopped being fun. One such trip started in Anchorage and ended up in Key West. Another started somewhere in Florida and ended in San Diego - by way of Canada.

trackhub

No, you are not the only one. I just like to get on and ride. I like nothing better than a ride of about 20 miles, at my own pace, on a sultry summer evening. I do not use a computer, I ride steel, and I use toe clips. For some odd reason, this seems to drive a lot of people totally Bat Guano. So be it. So, in short, you feel like one of the last humans in "invasion of the body snatchers", right? You know the scenes when the last humans are running away, and run into a large group of the pod people, and they point and to do that
unearthly shriek. Yeah, not being part of the crowd is kind of like that.

Dudelsack 

I have no idea why you feel that way.

This weekend I took note of all the cyclists who zipped by me. Many were riding flat bar bikes, wearing tennis shoes and toe clips. If I wanted to rag on them, I would have had to speed up to catch them, and I didn't feel up to it.

shadoman

Some guy named.... Retro ???? Hmm **********

qcpmsame 

Okay, I have to backtrack a little here, after some thought while I was riding this afternoon, I do have a goal. It is selfish, but I won't apologize for having it. My goal is to have creatine numbers that are not worse than what got me diagnosed as Stage 3B. Riding as my exercise has gotten me a long ways since last July, I owe 50+ Forum and my bike a whole lot, I'll pay y'all later if that's okay with everyone. I have stuck to my diet, religiously with the help and support of my lovely wife and 50+ has kept me riding the same way, thanks all!! so no century or riding my age, although that will probably happen with my daughter.

Bill

NOS88