Showing posts with label riding as a man. Show all posts
Showing posts with label riding as a man. Show all posts

10 July 2015

How Old Is "Too Old"?



Today I stopped in a bike shop in my neighborhood.  It’s a tiny place that’s been there for about as long as its owner has been in the neighborhood—which is to say, most of his life.


There, I saw someone I hadn’t seen in a while.  He’s worked in the shop during the season for as long as I can remember.  Whatever they’re paying him, he can afford to work there:  He retired from a city job when he was 50.


(Old bike-industry joke:  “Wanna know how to end up with a small fortune in this business?  Start with a big one!”)


We chatted.  “Still riding, I see.”  I nodded, but I wondered why he said that.  As long as I don’t have a condition that precludes doing so, I intend to keep on cycling.


“What about you?”


“My cycling days are over,” he said. 


“I’m sorry.  Are you OK?”


“Oh, I’m fine.  Just old.  Too old to ride.”


“How old is that?, might I ask.”


He told me.


“So you’re retiring from cycling—but not working?”


He sighed.  “The legs can’t do what they used to do.”


“I’m sorry to hear that.”


“I’m not sorry.  I had some really good times on my bike.  Good memories.”


He didn’t mention any injuries or debilitating diseases.  I’m guessing that riding just became more pain than pleasure for him.



I must admit:  It wasn’t comforting to hear what he said, as I’m closer to his age than I’d like to admit.  He was younger than I am now when we first met and did some rides together. 



When I first started to talk about my gender identity issues with my former partner, she predicted that I might give up cycling. “It’ll suck,” she said, “when you’re full of estrogen instead of testosterone.”



“Why should it matter?”



“You don’t realize how accustomed you are to the strength you have.  I don’t know that you’d like riding without it.”



As I mentioned in an earlier post, I thought about giving up cycling when I first started living as Justine, about a year after I started taking hormones.  At that point, I hadn’t yet noticed much of a loss in my strength.  I just thought that cycling was part of my life as a guy named Nick and wasn’t sure I could bring it into my new life.



I love cycling now as much as I ever did.  Perhaps more so: I think that in my youth and my life as a male (which overlapped quite a lot!), I prided myself on riding longer, harder and faster than most other cyclists, at least the ones I knew.  Even more, I liked the admiration and respect I got from other male cyclists, some of whom won races.



Since my transition, I’ve become a different sort of cyclist.  I don’t have the strength I once did.  Some of that may be a matter of age or other factors besides my hormonal changes.  Surprisingly, I didn’t have to “accept” that I wasn’t going to be as strong or fast as I once was; rather, I found that cycling heightened the emotional release I have felt in living as the person I am.



I hope that I can continue it—cycling, or more important, what it’s become for me—when I get to be the age of the man I met today.  And beyond. 

From People for Bikes

30 March 2013

An Old Riding Partner--Or Racing Rival?

"Mind if I ride your wheel?"

"No, not at all!"

He didn't realize it's the best--or, at least my favorite--question anyone has asked me in a while. It's  as good as "How old are you?  Forty?"

We'd been playing "tag" along Cross Bay Boulevard, the road that runs the length of an island in Jamaica Bay between Howard Beach and Rockaway Beach.  It's a long (about 4km) flat stretch, which makes almost anyone on a bike feel like a sprinter, at least for a few minutes.  The day was sunny, though chilly, and we were buffeted by the winds one expects at this time of year.  Still, I think both he and I felt  about ten years younger.

Actually, I felt even younger than that. A man--a trim one, who looked like he'd been riding more than I'd been--wanting to draft my wheel.  Hey, if he'd asked me, I probably would have pulled him with one hand!

Somehow he looked familiar.  He was maybe a centimeter, if that, taller than me and, as I mentioned, trimmer.  His dark beard was flecked with gray, and his fair black skin had a few small wrinkles.  I'd've guessed him to be close to my own age.  That guess would turn out to be correct.

As we talked, I couldn't help but to think we'd met--actually, ridden--together.  When I was living in Park Slope, he was living on the other side of Prospect Park, in Crown Heights.  Now he lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant.  So, naturally, we talked about riding in Prospect Park, and how we both had the "ten lap" rule:  Once we could ride that much in the park without much effort--something that would happen around this time of year, maybe a bit earlier--we'd "graduate" to longer rides outside the park,and even outside of Brooklyn or New York City.  I had a feeling I'd ridden with him on at least one of those longer rides; he had the same feeling. 

He also mentioned that he'd road-raced, around the same time I did.  Like me, he quit racing (and I also stopped riding off-road) after turning 40:  Although, ironically, I had more strength and endurance than I did 15 years earlier, my wounds weren't healing as quickly as they once did.  He also gave that as a reason for not chasing trophies, and other riders.

I rode with him for a couple of hours and, actually, off the route I'd planned to ride.  But I didn't mind:  Just as I was wondering whether I'd ever get myself into any kind of shape, ever again, he wanted to ride my wheel.  And he thought I'd been riding more than he'd been.  To be fair, I have to give at least some of the credit to Arielle:



To answer a question you might be asking:  He gave me his name (which was familiar) and told me where he works.