Ah, the late 70’s. Here I am astride my trusty 10 speed while hanging with my buddy Andrew. Looks like an outtake from the movie “Breaking Away”.
I love bicycling. It is the one form of exercise that I don’t regard as exercise. I also enjoy strength training and taking the doggies for a walk, but I can’t say I love those activities. But I do love cycling. I love the sense of motion as my legs churn… the hiss of my tires as they roll along the ground… taking in the beauty of the passing surroundings.
I learned to ride a bike when I was five years old, and for the next 20 years I practically lived on my bike. I rode everywhere, either alone or with my friends. My two wheels took me to the swimming pool, school, the mall, the library and sometimes to nowhere in particular. Just somewhere far away. My bicycle gave me freedom.
When I started closing in on my third decade, for reasons I still do not fully understand, I put my bicycle away and rarely ever got it back out. I sometimes took the Vintage daughters on family cycling outings to the local park, but then the bike went back to collecting dust.
Maybe I thought that bicycling was child’s play. Perhaps I just got lazy. What I do know is that I spent the next twenty-five years engaged in an activity that I despised.
Once I stopped riding, I began to put on weight. Somewhere along the line I got it in my head that the best way to lose weight was by jogging/running. After all, running burns more calories than most other forms of exercise. So I replaced cycling with running.
Of course, if you are not consistent with exercise you won’t reap the benefits, and if you don’t like the type of exercise you are doing you will never be consistent. And I hate running!
I am not built like a runner (of course, I’m not exactly built like a bicyclist either but that’s another story). With broad shoulders and short, muscular legs I am built more like a shot-putter. Running for speed or endurance is not my forte. But I stuck with jogging for years, even though I actually gained weight during this time.
I had to spend months building up my running endurance. I’d run for a minute and walk for five minutes. Slowly I would increase the running time and decrease the walking portion. I would set little goals for myself: “I just have to run to that street sign/tree/ telephone pole and then I can stop running and walk for awhile”.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I realize now that the whole time I was trying to forge myself into a runner, I spent most of my time trying to get to a point where I could finally STOP RUNNING!
Photo taken during an autumn ride in Cherry Creek State Park (click to enlarge).
And the whole time I hurt all over and inevitably injured myself or developed plantar fasciitis or iliotibial band syndrome. Good times.
Shortly after I retired from federal and military service, I pulled my bicycle out of mothballs and started to ride again. I rediscovered the joy I used to feel when I rode as a boy. A side effect of my return to cycling is that I have lost 35 lbs without really trying.
I don’t ride to set personal speed records or log endless miles in the saddle to “build base endurance”. I ride because it brings me joy. There is just something life affirming about bicycling for a couple of hours on a warm day and then ending the ride by cracking open and downing a cold brewski.
Mr. O’Doherty’s “On My Own Two Wheels” is an interesting look at a man getting back into bicycling after several decades away. Mr. O’Doherty was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes shortly before his 60th birthday. He lost close to 30lbs by dieting and walking. Whereupon he decided that with less weight to lug around, perhaps he could start bicycling again, a activity than he enjoyed in his youth.
