Last year I started my journey back to cycling, the sport that consumed most of my free time during the 1990’s.  Since my doctor forbade me from all things high-impact (which basically covered about 80% of my pre-surgery workout routine) after my 2013 knee surgery, I had to find alternative work out routines for this middle-aged body.

The poor doctor was not expecting the long line of questioning that followed after he said “no running ever again, understand?”  Running the bleachers? NO, but you can walk them… Bootcamp? NO… Cross training? NO, if there is any jumping or running… Hiking? YES…(OK, great… I do love to hike…but there is only so much hiking so you can do in Florida as your daily workout routine)… Weight Training? YES… Cycling? YES…Doctor, I mean real cycling, like a century, a metric, lots of miles, many times a week…not riding around the park or around the block?  still a YES…

The YES that stuck to my mind was the YES to cycling…hmmmmm!  I can still walk the bleachers, obviously walk all I want, do weight training, hike and CYCLE TO MY HEART’s CONTENT.  The drive home seemed like an eternity…I had to check on my poor 1991 Specialized Allez Epic carbon fiber road bike that had been sitting all forgotten in a corner of my home office for over a decade. The next day, both our bikes (hubby’s too) found themselves at Cycle World for a good cleaning and a tune up.  Both bikes also got a little updating shortly after.  I obviously also had to get all new gear, from shoes, jerseys, cycle shorts, gloves, etc. as my old gear had ended up at the local Goodwill store. Well, within a week, I had completed the purchase of all the basic gear I needed just to get started.

Back in the 1990’s, I was all about cycling and I was not afraid of anything.Cycling consumed almost every free minute of my life. I would cycle the Rickenbacker Causeway again and again and again, just to get ready for real hills. I would ride through the busiest streets, ride comfortably at close proximity of other cyclists and covered many miles a month.  I would cycle the 4 miles around the Kendall Lakes Country Club (now the Miccosukee Country Club) again, again and again just… because.  I really enjoyed participating in planned rides in the Palm Beach-Broward-Dade area and had the time of my life riding through the rolling hills of Mount Dora for two years in a row.  The husband and I even booked an amazing vacation with Backroads where we cycled around the Arizona-Utah mountains. And then it all stopped one day in the year 2000…I am not even sure why I stopped riding…I guess it was a change in my priorities…and just life.

So, here I am, telling you all about how it all started…AGAIN.  So, I am back on my bike, but it is different now.  I am a lot slower, much older and perhaps also a little wiser.   I now see things that I never noticed before.  I see and feel the proximity of the cars, the danger of riding so close to other cyclists, the anger of the drivers towards us cyclists, the lack of bicycle lanes, the poor maintenance of the few existing bicycle lanes, the debris on the road, the amount of cyclist getting injured/killed and the effects of my age on my cycling performance.   I also feel and look forward to the courtesy, the patience and the honest friendship I have found in many of my new cycling buddies from the Everglades Bicycle Club.

And…I want to tell you…here in RedOstelinda…about all these things as they happen on my journey back to cycling. So, RedOstelinda will have a category all by itself and a menu header called My Cycling.  Hope you come back and read my posts. And please, feel free to post comments.