Bike Forums - Newbie from Wililamsport, PA USA

Howdy y'all.

Hmmm, let's see? I am a 49 year old male, 6' 2" tall, and weigh about 330 pounds. All of my vitals are very good and my cholesterol is 154, so my doc is happy. I've been married to my wife for 26 years, so I'm happy and I guess she is. We have one 25 year old daughter, and we're expecting a grandson in December. Don't ask about the WSIL, he's WORTHLESS.

I served in the United States Marine Corps and then became a Deputy Sheriff. I've spent the last 23 years working in Federal prisons as an officer and then as a shift supervisor (Lieutenant), so I've got really thick skin. I get to retire at the end of 2008, at the age of 50. I am a certified referee for USA Cycling and UCI races. I teach motorcycle safety courses for the state of PA. And I am a certified substitute teacher for my four county region.

I got here via google searching for info. I belong to three other forums, Early Retirement, Simple Living, and Homesteading Today. Which pretty much sums up my hopes for retirement. Retiring at 50, living on our own little farm, and raising most of our food, while maintaining a simple lifestyle. Which is where the bicycle comes into play. Our current house is 4 miles from the outskirts, 5 miles from the nearest hardware/lumber store, 6 mies from the grocery, 7 miles from the library, and 10 miles from Wal-Mart.

As retirement has approached I have begun to reconsider some ideas I hadn't thought of in a long time; reducing my environmental footprint, maintaining genetic diversity in my food chain, and basically returning to a less harried and hustled life than I've lived these past 25 years. I can't claim that I did it for environmental reasons, nor even for cost savings, but in the last four years I have ridden my motorcycles at least 7 months out of each year. I have totaled over 80,000 miles on motorcycles in that time, and during a trip to TN in the summer of '06 my wife and I toasted both our 25th wedding anniversary and my 250,000th mile on two wheels. I just prefer riding to driving my pickup.

Living as close to town as we do I have visions of becoming nearly pickup free. I want to start riding my virtually unused bicycle as my primary means of going to town. It's a Fuji Palisade model, I think I bought it in 2003, maybe 2002. i have a lightly traveled country road that loops back to my house after 4 miles. so it's a perfect warm-up/training ride. Once I can do that without hurting I plan to start riding to town at least once a week for errands. the impetus for this decision is two-fold. One, I want to reduce my oil usage. And two, I want to build fitness so I can live a long and healthy retirement.

About the only thing I know about cycling is that I know nothing. Oh, and that Team Lipton has some of the prettiest ladies in professional cycle racing. so pleasebe patient with my DNG questions. (Dumb New Guy)