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Thinking of giving up cycling for good


Road Runner

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My new doctor that I am seeing for my bone loss problem, a rheumatologist, has strongly suggested that I stop riding a bicycle.  If I fall, she fears I could break something major and spend the rest of my life incapacitated in some way.  After reading Zealot's post about his coworker, I'm beginning to give it a lot of serious thought.  

She says I should stop riding and walk.  Walking is better for my bones and a fall while walking would likely be far less injurious.  Unfortunately, my back problems interfere with the walking whereas cycling doesn't hurt.  But I don't want to live my remaining years in a wheelchair or a bed.  Maybe it's time.  :mellow: 

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Being a grown-up involves lots of tough decisions with no easy answers.  Sometimes your head and your heart would make different choices and I imagine this is one of them.  Only you and your doctor know what's best for you..... good luck making your decision.

It occurs to me that even if you decide today to give up riding, you are probably going to have to decide again tomorrow, and the next day...

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10 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

My new doctor that I am seeing for my bone loss problem, a rheumatologist, has strongly suggested that I stop riding a bicycle.  If I fall, she fears I could break something major and spend the rest of my life incapacitated in some way.  After reading Zealot's post about his coworker, I'm beginning to give it a lot of serious thought.  

She says I should stop riding and walk.  Walking is better for my bones and a fall while walking would likely be far less injurious.  Unfortunately, my back problems interfere with the walking whereas cycling doesn't hurt.  But I don't want to live my remaining years in a wheelchair or a bed.  Maybe it's time.  :mellow: 

Is it really all that bad?  I am sure I have bone loss from the decades of zantac and prilosec and the like. I just try not to fall or take chances that I used to take.  Resistance workouts should help, too, but as we all get older, we all have worse outcomes in accidents anyway.  I would say just ride and enjoy it on quiet streets or trails, and realize we all have several guns aimed at our heads and that eventually one of them is going to get us anyway.  Might as well live and enjoy, rather than stay inside and be miserable and not enjoy anyway.

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It's tough.  I personally have mostly given up road riding in favor of MTBing.  I'd rather take my chances, my skills vs. the terrain, rather than my flesh and bones vs. multi-ton projectiles of steel and glass.  I probably get minor injuries at a much greater rate than I would on the road, but I think the chances of major injury/death are much lower.

I know that doesn't help you at all.  Not sure what I'd do in your case.

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18 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Might as well live and enjoy

Sounds good until you are laying the hospital and someone tells you you may never walk again.  I have had two major crashes that sent me to the hospital in an ambulance.  Another one of those could be much worse in my present condition.  Maybe I am accident prone.  Actually, after my accident in 2010, the surgeon said after the operation, "I think you should be able to walk without too much trouble."  That scared me a bit.  That was the end of my running career.

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1 minute ago, Road Runner said:

Sounds good until you are laying the hospital and someone tells you you may never walk again.

I know, I know.  Having the bad knees and thinking that I would have loved to summit Everest or done some extreme hikes has always made me wistful, but at least I was able to ride.  I feel like that will slowly take care of itself as things get worse, and I have trouble walking some days  now (foot pain for about 6 months now, and swollen knees for the last month).  My knees respond favorably to riding, but I don't have that option right now.  Anyway, I hate to think you would stop doing something you enjoy while you can still do it.  You may regret not riding while you can is all.

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2 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I would have loved to summit Everest

It seems like with new technology everyone can do it.  I saw a documentary a million years ago.  There's a line at the top where you need to wait then you get a minute or two to take your pics, then move over for the next group.

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1 minute ago, Square Wheels said:

It seems like with new technology everyone can do it.  I saw a documentary a million years ago.  There's a line at the top where you need to wait then you get a minute or two to take your pics, then move over for the next group.

Not that easy.  Someone just died up there this weekend.

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Just now, Square Wheels said:

It seems like with new technology everyone can do it.  I saw a documentary a million years ago.  There's a line at the top where you need to wait then you get a minute or two to take your pics, then move over for the next group.

Hmm, kind of takes the fun out of it.   

With my knees, I cannot hike down hills at all.  When I first got to Boulder in 1995, I went on a great hike.  Lots of near vertical stuff, incredibly strenuous, I loved it!  Then I had to come down.  An hour up, almost 4 hours coming down.  So much pain, I thought I might have to carried or airlifted out of there.  Damn knees. :angry:

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3 minutes ago, Reverend_Maynard said:

Not that easy.  Someone just died up there this weekend.

I was being somewhat facetious.  I can't imagine how dangerous it is.  I'd be horrified seeing the dead bodies along the way, from what I hear, it's too much effort to remove them, and with the constant cold they stay well preserved.

Image result for line to summit everest

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2 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

Large frames.  I'm 6' 2".  I forget the cm measurement but I can find out if necessary.  I would give them to my son, but they are too big for him.

I'm 6'2" ?

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4 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

I was being somewhat facetious.  I can't imagine how dangerous it is.  I'd be horrified seeing the dead bodies along the way, from what I hear, it's too much effort to remove them, and with the constant cold they stay well preserved.

Image result for line to summit everest

I know.  I get it.  That recent movie Everest was about a group of pros and the tourists they were paid to get to the summit.

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59 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

My new doctor that I am seeing for my bone loss problem, a rheumatologist, has strongly suggested that I stop riding a bicycle.  If I fall, she fears I could break something major and spend the rest of my life incapacitated in some way.  After reading Zealot's post about his coworker, I'm beginning to give it a lot of serious thought.  

She says I should stop riding and walk.  Walking is better for my bones and a fall while walking would likely be far less injurious.  Unfortunately, my back problems interfere with the walking whereas cycling doesn't hurt.  But I don't want to live my remaining years in a wheelchair or a bed.  Maybe it's time.  :mellow: 

Wow!

I have the same problem as I've a broken back which goes into spasm. Thing is...giving up cycling is tough if you've been doing it for well over forty years and your entire social life is involved with it. Certainly cycling is not a weight-bearing activity which of course walking is and is therefore inducive to bone formation. It's a tough choice but I wish you the best whatever.

 

 

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3 hours ago, TrentonMakes said:

Well actually, as I recall there were a lot of gates on the ramps off 64 near Williamsburg.  I wasn't sure what they were for.

Hurricane evacuations off the coast, they shut down all the east bound ramps and make all lanes west bound

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All this talk of bone loss got me thinking. Bone loss is why I ended up with dentures. I'll bet it had nothing to do with flossing. That's about the time I started breaking bones in my crashes too. Stinking dentists trying to lay a guilt trip on me saying if I would have ran that string between my teeth more I wouldn't have had any bone loss. I didn't have any cavities, I never did buy that story about not flossing enough causing bone loss. :default_sissy-fight-smiley:

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6 hours ago, Road Runner said:

Large frames.  I'm 6' 2".  I forget the cm measurement but I can find out if necessary.  I would give them to my son, but they are too big for him.

Oh, so they're Honey Badger sized.

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1 hour ago, Longjohn said:

All this talk of bone loss got me thinking. Bone loss is why I ended up with dentures. I'll bet it had nothing to do with flossing. That's about the time I started breaking bones in my crashes too. Stinking dentists trying to lay a guilt trip on me saying if I would have ran that string between my teeth more I wouldn't have had any bone loss. I didn't have any cavities, I never did buy that story about not flossing enough causing bone loss. :default_sissy-fight-smiley:

Red meat and running build strong bones.

Especially if you run down the red meat on your own feet, kill it by hand, and eat it with the tribe, by the fire. 

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1 minute ago, Further said:

Red meat and running build strong bones.

Especially if you run down the red meat on your own feet, kill it by hand, and eat it with the tribe, by the fire. 

I have run more since I turned 60 than I have in my whole life.  I haven't chased down any red meat though.

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Just now, Longjohn said:

I have run more since I turned 60 than I have in my whole life.  I haven't chased down any red meat though.

It's the next level. Start with a rabbit, build up to a deer, run down and kill a bear with bare hands and bone density won't be an issue.

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I'm wondering if cycling is easier on your muscles if it's stationary.

Maybe it's just my years of long distance running and cross country and track high school coaching, but it was cycling that finally restored my operated-on Achilles tendons: Running or walking a few miles left them too sore the next few days to do any exercise.  Now walking a few miles is fine - I sometimes feel a slight heel pain in the evening that's gone the next day - and after I've dropped more weight (280 to 260 in 3 months) I'm going to try running.

Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was also having trouble with his legs his last couple of years as a player that none of the trainers and exercise routines could fix. Then he started cycling and it worked wonders.

So I wonder: if you have to give up cycling where you have to maintain balance, could you get an indoor bike trainer to get a little higher-heartbeat exercise?  I bought a cheap one from Amazon my bike easily attaches to and since I have the cadence attachment for my Garmin Edge 510 where a magnet attached to a spoke is sensed by a sensor on the frame and you enter your tire diameter and you can choose to measure distance traveled by cadence instead of GPS, so I can measure distance "traveled" even though I'm sitting still. Unfortunately I haven't used it as much as I'd like in winter and bad weather because of my shoulder and  former hip problems, but it's light in weight and can be set up to watch TV or listen to music while riding.

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