Peter W wrote:Mercalia. I was 80 years old in November last year. My normal cycling is over the Yorkshire Dales, and Yorkshire Moors, taking in all the usual popular cicuits and climbs. (Buttertubs, Stang, Tan Gill, Oxnap Scar etc etc.)
For the last several years I've fitted 1:1 ratio bottom geras to both my road bikes for those steep long climbs. but just this year I've found 1:4 climbs a bit more difficult on that ratio, so I've adapted both bikes (older 9 speed Spesh Roubaix - new 11 speed Spesh Roubaix) with 12/36 cassette and MTB Deore mech with 50/34 compact rings on old Roubaix - 11/34 cassette with sub compact 48/32 rings on new Roubaix, to give one step lower bottom gearing for long steep climbing.
It would be easy to misunderstand what motivates some of us oldies. I am not chasing my youth by trying to compete with younger fitter riders, but simply competing with myself to at least limit inevitable decline into something quite acceptable. It would be failure if those climbs were not still attainable.
I suppose that's why a degree of impatience is evident, by not wanting to rest for too long.That kind of smacks of giving in! It gives a great deal of joy and satisfaction to complete the 'mission' on my terms. (The worst time funnily enough was on turning 40, and starting to think I was past it.
That now seems ridiculous, so here's to the next 10 years!
I likes your gear talk. Although I am but a sprightly 69, the gears on all my bikes go lower than 1:1. Moreover, there's nothing higher than 1:4. Gravity does wonders for acceleration & speed if one crouches into a cat-pounce shape whilst descending. (I can no longer do 35mph on the flat for more than a couple of minutes). The crawler gears mean that the Pennine and Lakeland roads all remain available. (As do the West Welsh ones).
****
But I must here mention the issue of our motivation(s) to cycle. You have made a bit of a list. I have done so myself, in the past. Time and events have taught me that these motivations, reasons, explanations and all other forms of conscious rationalisation for what we do are goosewipe & poodlejuice. In reality, something churns deep within the mind-body plexus then outputs a set of motor impulses. The conscious "me" that has emerged as some kind of observer then pretends to itself that it is in charge and therefore itself derived the orders to this plexus, along with all sorts of "reasons" why.
I now tell people who ask me why I ride a bike that I don't know - I just do.
****
As to the styles of riding - alone, in various groups, at various speeds and in various fashions .... my mind-body plexus seems to seek out and enjoy them all, including the cake-quaffing.
Cugel, knowing only that I'm just another mysterious human thing, probably capable of anything if the world pushes the right Cugel-buttons.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
)
