Biking: The Fountain of Youth?
Has this ever happened to you? You want to stay marginally in shape, but you’re not getting any younger. You still run, fitfully, but you never really loved it and you like it less and less with each passing year. But regular cardiovascular exercise is necessary to keep your tendency toward high cholesterol in check. So what do you do?
I’m asking for a friend.
What? You thought I was talking about myself? Pfffftt! No way! It’s not as though I wake up in the morning with a vision of myself in my mind’s eye as still being a chiseled 20-year-old with non-gray hair, jet-black stubble on his granite jaw that maybe needs a shave this morning—no, no, on second though keep it! It makes you look rugged!—and six-pack abs...only to look in the mirror and go “Who’s that wrinkly dude with the silver hair, jowls, gray stubble and jelly-belly?”
Haha! (Or “LOL”, as the kids in their forties say.) No way that’s ever happened to me!
(Okay, time to come clean: I really was talking about myself the whole time.)
But to get back to my main point, i.e., exercise, here’s the solution I came up with:
Biking.
As WebMD’s Biking page notes:
As I noted in my running post, all you really need to start running is a decent pair of running shoes. It’s not quite that inexpensive to start biking. But biking expenses are not especially daunting, either. You’ll need a bike, of course, but unless you’re going to become a competitive cycler, you don’t need a top-of-the-line bike. I bought a brand new Raleigh 21-gear comfort bike over 7 years ago for $400 and I’m still using it today.
You’ll also need a good helmet. This cannot be stressed enough. Seriously. Once, while riding in the early morning’s crepuscular light, I hit an unseen speed bump at 15 mph and as I fell I felt my helmet slam into the pavement. I walked away from the fall relatively unscathed, but I still shudder to think what might have been had I been foolish enough to ride without a helmet.
In New Jersey, cyclists under the age of 17 must wear a helmet, but, please, regardless of your age, wear a helmet! Keep in mind, bike helmets are good for only one crash. You may hit your head on a fall, get up feeling fine, look at your helmet and see little sign of damage. Surely the helmet is still good? It absolutely is not.
As I have previously said, I still run. Running feels like exercise and runs can be grueling slogs, so they must be better for you than cycling. My rational mind knows this is objectively false but this conviction proceeds from something lizard-brainish in its obduracy, something that goes beyond fact and rationality.
I actually enjoy cycling, though. Cycling has a number of advantages over running. Among them:
You can coast at times. (Try doing that while running.) One of the great rewards of cycling your way up a steep hill on a simple out-and-back ride is knowing that, on the way back, that steep uphill will be a precipitous downhill and even pre-geezers like me can still feel the 10-year-old’s WHHEEEEEEEEE!! thrill of coasting down a hill at speeds upward of 30mph. It’s still fun. Whereas running downhill is just...running.
The runs I do nowadays tend to be from 3 to 3.5 miles in length. There are only so many different places you can go within that limited range. Runs are boring even if you try to distract yourself by listening to music, an audiobook or a podcast while doing them. They are even more boring when you’ve run, countless times, the same 20 or so route-variations that are available to you from your house, seeing the same sights over and over again. It can be brutal. One of the most exciting things for me when I started cycling was being able to go much farther from home (I try to average 16 miles per ride); the route possibilities increased exponentially, seemingly. I can get out of my town, into the countryside. I can see sooo much more of my county! Un- or semi-paved rural side roads that I have never been down before because they’re too far from my house to run to and I’d have no reason to drive down them—I can finally explore these! Thanks to cycling, I now know that there is an alpaca farm within riding distance of my house. I’m discovering which roads connect various parts of my county to each other. I turn down a gravel side road and 3 miles later end up...here? Huh! I had no idea I was anywhere nar here! Turns out you can get from there to here! Who knew?
The rural side roads are my favorites. On nice days, the scenery is beautiful. I have springtime allergies that can be brutal, but spring is still my all-time favorite time of year to ride.
One last note: If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, your bike will provide you endless opportunities to scratch that wannabe-repairman’s itch. I myself am no good at fixing things (I’m more a breaker-of-things), so I take my bike to my (really good) bike shop guy for all maintenance issues, but the library has (see below) multiple titles on bicycle repair and maintenance. If that gives you joy, have at it!
Happy cycling!
Bicycling Magazine - Available at our Ewing, Lawrence, and West Windsor Branches
The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Beginners : Everything a New Cyclist Needs to Know to Gear Up and Start Riding by Tori Bortman
Biking: How to Make It a Workout (WebMD)
The Cyclist’s Training Bible: The World’s Most Comprehensive Training Guide by Joe Friel
Bicycle Repair books (The Complete Bike Owner's Manual; Bicycle Repair Manual; The Ultimate Bicycle Owner's Manual: The Universal Guide to Bikes, Riding, and Everything for Beginner and Seasoned Cyclists)
Pleasure-Cycling by Henry Clyde (hoopla eBook)
I’m asking for a friend.
What? You thought I was talking about myself? Pfffftt! No way! It’s not as though I wake up in the morning with a vision of myself in my mind’s eye as still being a chiseled 20-year-old with non-gray hair, jet-black stubble on his granite jaw that maybe needs a shave this morning—no, no, on second though keep it! It makes you look rugged!—and six-pack abs...only to look in the mirror and go “Who’s that wrinkly dude with the silver hair, jowls, gray stubble and jelly-belly?”
Haha! (Or “LOL”, as the kids in their forties say.) No way that’s ever happened to me!
(Okay, time to come clean: I really was talking about myself the whole time.)
But to get back to my main point, i.e., exercise, here’s the solution I came up with:
Biking.
As WebMD’s Biking page notes:
Cycling gets your heart rate up almost as much as running and burns a lot of calories. It's also gentle on your body. It doesn't put a lot of stress on your joints, which helps if you’re getting into shape or have joint problems.
As I noted in my running post, all you really need to start running is a decent pair of running shoes. It’s not quite that inexpensive to start biking. But biking expenses are not especially daunting, either. You’ll need a bike, of course, but unless you’re going to become a competitive cycler, you don’t need a top-of-the-line bike. I bought a brand new Raleigh 21-gear comfort bike over 7 years ago for $400 and I’m still using it today.
You’ll also need a good helmet. This cannot be stressed enough. Seriously. Once, while riding in the early morning’s crepuscular light, I hit an unseen speed bump at 15 mph and as I fell I felt my helmet slam into the pavement. I walked away from the fall relatively unscathed, but I still shudder to think what might have been had I been foolish enough to ride without a helmet.
In New Jersey, cyclists under the age of 17 must wear a helmet, but, please, regardless of your age, wear a helmet! Keep in mind, bike helmets are good for only one crash. You may hit your head on a fall, get up feeling fine, look at your helmet and see little sign of damage. Surely the helmet is still good? It absolutely is not.
The foam part of a helmet is made for one-time use, and after crushing once it is no longer as protective as it was, even if it still looks intact. Bear in mind that if the helmet did its job most people would tell you that they did not even hit their head, or did not hit their head that hard.
As I have previously said, I still run. Running feels like exercise and runs can be grueling slogs, so they must be better for you than cycling. My rational mind knows this is objectively false but this conviction proceeds from something lizard-brainish in its obduracy, something that goes beyond fact and rationality.
I actually enjoy cycling, though. Cycling has a number of advantages over running. Among them:
You can coast at times. (Try doing that while running.) One of the great rewards of cycling your way up a steep hill on a simple out-and-back ride is knowing that, on the way back, that steep uphill will be a precipitous downhill and even pre-geezers like me can still feel the 10-year-old’s WHHEEEEEEEEE!! thrill of coasting down a hill at speeds upward of 30mph. It’s still fun. Whereas running downhill is just...running.
The rural side roads are my favorites. On nice days, the scenery is beautiful. I have springtime allergies that can be brutal, but spring is still my all-time favorite time of year to ride.
One last note: If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, your bike will provide you endless opportunities to scratch that wannabe-repairman’s itch. I myself am no good at fixing things (I’m more a breaker-of-things), so I take my bike to my (really good) bike shop guy for all maintenance issues, but the library has (see below) multiple titles on bicycle repair and maintenance. If that gives you joy, have at it!
Happy cycling!
Selected Resources
Bicycling Magazine - Available at our Ewing, Lawrence, and West Windsor Branches
The Bicycling Big Book of Cycling for Beginners : Everything a New Cyclist Needs to Know to Gear Up and Start Riding by Tori Bortman
Biking: How to Make It a Workout (WebMD)
The Cyclist’s Training Bible: The World’s Most Comprehensive Training Guide by Joe Friel
Bicycle Repair books (The Complete Bike Owner's Manual; Bicycle Repair Manual; The Ultimate Bicycle Owner's Manual: The Universal Guide to Bikes, Riding, and Everything for Beginner and Seasoned Cyclists)
Pleasure-Cycling by Henry Clyde (hoopla eBook)
- Tom G., Hopewell Branch
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