Senior riders

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Petrichorwheels

Petrichorwheels

Senior Member
KnittyNorah said:
I'm in my 70s and got a bike last summer as a birthday gift to myself for my 75th. Took a few days to get back the knack of riding one - hadn't been on one for more than a decade - but cracked it OK. First rides were literally 10 - 15 minutes but after a few weeks I was able to doing 5 miles, and by the end of the summer was doing 15+ miles occasionally. Now I ride it most days, do all my supermarket shopping with it (baskets and panniers front and back), go to U3A meetings on it, take it on trips out by train and am sorry that winter and foul weather is coming as it will limit my riding. I badly ruptured my Achilles tendon 4 years ago and in the year since I've been riding my bike my ankle has improved vastly.

I live in a flat area and am still pondering whether or not to get an e-conversion for it.
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great stuff nora.
Despite your location tag I don't think the weather is too limiting. I'd encourage you get some good winter cycling togs (better than they have ever been and cheap decent stuff is due to, er, trickle down, often available. Avoid any chance of ice of course.
 
G

gootzie

New Member
gbs said:
"I've really enjoyed reading this thread! I'm almost 79, female, and haven't been on a bike since 40. If I want to see 80+, more exercise is in order and a bike looks perfect, except I'm at a loss right now what to get. It definitely will be an e-bike or e-trike to help me out until I get stronger."

Gootzie,sorry to state the obvious but E-bikes are relatively heavy and may be difficlut to manage if travelling by car or train. I did a little research and reached the conclusion that e-bike is not a good solution for me even though i am now age 80 and in rehab after major surgery.
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Thanks gbs. I appreciate your concern. I had ordered a Rad ebike and ended up cancelling the order when I realized I was no longer 39. Now one of the first things I look at is the weight. I haven't dismissed an etrike, thinking the older I get, perhaps the less I can handle an ebike and will have to give it up, ending up with an etrike anyway. The jury is still out. At any rate, I refuse to believe I will be unable to ride.
 
BoldonLad

BoldonLad

Not part of the Elite
Location
South Tyneside
gootzie said:
Thanks gbs. I appreciate your concern. I had ordered a Rad ebike and ended up cancelling the order when I realized I was no longer 39. Now one of the first things I look at is the weight. I haven't dismissed an etrike, thinking the older I get, perhaps the less I can handle an ebike and will have to give it up, ending up with an etrike anyway. The jury is still out. At any rate, I refuse to believe I will be unable to ride.
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If it helps, we (myself and wife) are two 75 year olds. We recently "graduated" to ebIkes. We chose Specialised Vado 4 Turbo. We ride for exercise, much of the time, we ride with the assistance tuned off, just putting on if a hill proves too much. Weight was a significant consideration in our choice. At 15kg they are "light" by ebike standards, many of the others we looked at were 25kg or more.
 
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CharleyFarley

CharleyFarley

Senior Member
Location
Japan
gootzie said:
I've really enjoyed reading this thread! I'm almost 79, female, and haven't been on a bike since 40. If I want to see 80+, more exercise is in order and a bike looks perfect, except I'm at a loss right now what to get. It definitely will be an e-bike or e-trike to help me out until I get stronger.

Keep this thread going to give me incentive and help me along the way. Thank you!
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If exercise is your top reason for getting a bike, I'd suggest a regular trike. They handle differently to a bike but you get used to them. They're easy to mount and dismount. If you opt for an electric bike or trike I'd suggest get one from a bike shop, not a big box store. It will cost a bit more, then when it comes to servicing the machine, you can rely on the bike shop but you won't get any service from a big box store. A bike shop might not want to service a cheap bike or trike, as I found out when I took a friend's trike to a bike shop. The freewheel had gone bad and they said they don't service trikes. And this was a huge bike shop with two stores! I ended up doing the repair, myself.

One other consideration is where you will be riding. If you have safe roads in your area, then you'll be in good shape, but if you have to transport it, a trike will need a pickup truck or small trailer to tow it. I'm 76 and although e-bikes look interesting, I ride for exercise so my pedal bikes are good for me.
 
K

KnittyNorah

Über Member
Location
The Frozen North (of England)
gbs said:
E-bikes are relatively heavy and may be difficlut to manage
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Exactly. They also come in a much smaller range of sizes than do other bikes and as I'm under 5ft ...
Getting something that bulky and heavy into a car or onto a rack is not an easy task, and if you don't drive, you will appreciate having something you can get onto the train or into a friend's car - or even into a bus or taxi. As I no longer drive, that applied to me.

So my Dahon folder at around 13kg was a good choice for me - and electric conversions are now starting to become more of a possibility even with the 'unorthodox' front fork width. I've built up a considerable amount of general fitness in the past 12 months and feel that I wouldn't have done so if I'd got an e-bike from the get-go, although if I lived in a hilly area I think that would probably have been different.
 
Always Cross

Always Cross

Guru
I’d been waiting a long time to say something and the other day it happened. I was talking to 2 people one was a friend the other was the friends friend I didn’t know. We got round to talking about cycling and my friend pointed to me and said that I had been cycling all my life, this my moment I replied “I haven’t been cycling all my life yet as I‘m not dead yet”. I Started riding at 7yo I’m 62 now.
 
antnee

antnee

Guru
Location
Weston Super mud, North Somerset
I started back cycling in 2012 after a gap of 25 years or so after sedentary job behind a steering wheel. I started out on a hybrid bike, which I still use for local shopping rides then graduated to a cheap alloy drop bar. Then finally a super carbon drop bar bike which I did many miles on. Though having said that I've not been out for some time due to bad eyesight (cataracts) so am waiting to get them done, I must say that I find cycling a really good way to exercise so at 75 I will. go on for as long as am able to.
 
D

Deleted member 1258

Guest
cadseen2 said:
Just joined today, just reached pension age 66. Great to see I am not the oldest :-)
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:welcome: theres a retirement thread on here pop in and say hello sometime.
 
froze

froze

Über Member
Location
Fort Wayne, Indiana
I'm a senior citizen at 66, I don't feel old. The really bad thing about age is that my eyes and mind are still young...do I have to spell it out what that means? If I do then you all are a lot older than you think!! LOL!!

I've been riding bikes for over 40 years, including a 10 stretch of racing up to Cat 3 back in my youth, but now I just don't care about going fast, I got burned out doing that way back then, and I'm still burned out from it, thank God I didn't get burned out from riding!

I'm actually looking forward to retiring, at least for a while, because I can take some trips on my bike and in the RV, some ship cruises with my wife that we couldn't do while I was working due to the time it would take to do what we want to do.

So getting older is sort of fun! yeah there are age related issues, but I do my best to ignore them or laugh about it!
 
Imaginos

Imaginos

Well-Known Member
Location
Southeast Alaska
I’m 64 and one year retired. My retirement so far has been bike riding and that’s been enough. Maintained both my weight and my savings balance so so far so good. I have COPD from decades of smoking and breathing hard,panting etc from exertion is the BEST thing I can do for the condition. Riding to live longer but mostly just riding for the sheer enjoyment.
 
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