Mid-life crisis?

[Fletten]

[A report by market researchers Mintel found that there was a boom in bike sales last year, with the biggest growth among men approaching middle age.
Latest figures reveal one in three Britons owns a bicycle. Overall, more men than women own a bike – and more than half of men aged 35 to 44 have one, the study shows. It dubs the upsurge in bike sales, the ‘noughties version of the mid-life crisis’ and predicts Britons will spend £700million on bikes this year.
Daily Mail 10/08/2010quote]

Has anybody seen this yet, it goes on to say:-

The findings might, perhaps, partly explain why celebrities such as Guy Ritchie and Billy Zane seem so fond of cycling.
Film director Ritchie, 41, who is divorced from Madonna, once said he ‘lives on a bicycle’ while actor Zane, 44, has admitted going ‘bar-hopping’ on his bike after his split from Kelly Brook.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0wDEPXSNn

Well I bought my first new bike when I was 65, where does that put me

[Guy951]

Well I bought my first new bike when I was 65, where does that put me

If it really is a MID-LIFE crisis thing then you're going to live to 130

As for the article, it's more nonsense from the Daily Wail.

[Nutsey]

Anti-Daily Mail whinging has increased a lot lately, and anti-Guardian whingeing going down. Must mean it is representing a lot people's views and being listened to by government.

Todays crackdown on benefit fraudsters was right out of the DM playbook.

[richardyorkshire]

Strange that they think of starting to ride a bicycle as representing a "crisis" in your life. In what way could choosing to ride a bicycle be evidence of a personal crisis?

I think it is more likely to be evidence of a society "crisis" than an individual mid-life crisis. Perhaps people start riding bikes again because human activity is messing up the planet and people try to change their life to mitigate the harm they cause. Perhaps there is a social crisis of obesity, leading to more people looking for ways to exercise and thus reduce the layers of fat around their waist. Perhaps there is a transport crisis, with roads choked and congested by motorised transport leading to people seeking another means of travel. Perhaps there is a crisis of respiratory disease caused by traffic pollution, leading to people seeking a mode of transport that harms no-one.

Then again, perhaps people are just reminded that cycling is great fun. Perhaps the decline of cycling was just a temporary blip as more people could afford cars. But now we're getting over the novelty of the car and returning to the all round best mode of transport: the bicycle.

[eltonioni]

Daily Mail innit.

[GrahamNR17]

I'd like a mid-life crisis. I thought I was having one, but it turned out to be indigestion.

Maybe I should start planning for it, just to make sure it's a good'un

[keyboardmonkey]

Perhaps crisis is too strong a word. But, for me, there's maybe some truth that in the fact that, in my 40s, I've bought two bikes in the last year (having bought my previous two in the mid 1980s) in some sort of attempt to recapture my youth. Or not. Dunno.

[jan19]

It was in the Guardian too.

As OH started regularly cycling when he was in that age range, I'm just delighted he found such a positive way to deal with his "mid-life crisis". As he's now 52 I'm assuming he's past all that nonsense

he did manage to acquire three bikes in that timespan though - one of them not cheap- so it wasn't entirely painless..

Jan

[Fletten]

Hope I am not going bore anybody .

I started off by saying

Well I bought my first new bike when I was 65, where does that put me

but in fact I was given my first bike (second-hand) age nine then I had several that were assembled from bits of old bikes. I remember when I was about 3 or 4 years old, my Dad at the weekend would take me to the pub on his bike and I would sit on a saddle that was fitted on the crossbar and I would hold the handlebars (no health and safety laws followed here) I used to look forward to that every week .

What I am getting at is that most of us who cycle, love cycling and at 68 I cycle to keep fit, what ever age you take up cycling it should not be ridiculed .

[Guy951]

...what ever age you take up cycling it should not be ridiculed .

+1

[fatboy]

I would fall into this category, I rode a bit lots as a kid and while at University and then gave up on the whole thing. Bought a BSO MTB a few years later and that was left to rot and fall apart in my old rowing club. Then 6 years ago I bought a second hand Dawes hybrid for £45 from my LBS, since then I've clocked up thousands of miles, toured etc. But I don't have a sports car substitute but if I had the cash........

[Lawrie9]

Mid life crisis? well no not really. Quite simply men of middling years simply have more disposable income and leisure time than most people. There has been a boom in the sales of boutique end road bikes which are targeted at the well healed which tend to be men in betweem 30 and 50. How can wanting to keep fit and get out into the fresh air be a mid life crisis. I think the people in their 20's are the one in the crisis with very few graduate jobs and unaffordable houses.

[essexman]

The telegraph ran a similar article, but the focus was on mid-life-crisis =triathlon. The article had a big picture of a sportive cyclist. I don't know what it said as i only looked at the picture!

There are plenty of em round here, wizzing around on their uniform Giant TCR bikes with tri-bars. One of em hit a parked car the other day, (i did that when i was 18 ), his carbon forks shattered and he piled into the car face first! Ouch. He's lost a lot of teeth, nasty mess. When i hit a parked car my steel bike catapulted me and then the bike over the top of the car and down the other side. Both me and the bike walked away.

[cjchambers]

The BBC seem to have jumped on the bandwagon too, and they've even come up with some vaguely offensive terminology . . . http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10965608

Flashy sports cars are out, now no mid-life crisis is complete without a souped-up road bike. Why?

Every weekend, across the nation's rolling countryside, watch out for the Mamils: middle-aged men in lycra.

I've never been a believer in the 'mid life crisis' - it's just a way for boring women to poke fun at men daring to continue enjoying themselves.

[GrahamNR17]

I've never been a believer in the 'mid life crisis' - it's just a way for boring women to poke fun at men daring to continue enjoying themselves.

What? Don't say that

I was looking forward to mine