Getting Old? Go Ride!

By Jay Bartlett

Last October, while having a game night with friends, my good friend Dustin made an announcement: he would be turning fifty in March. Hitting such a milestone gave him pause to think about his health and fitness, so he decided to give himself a challenge. In the next five months or so, he was determined to whip himself into good enough shape to be able to do a fifty mile mountain bike ride! Fifty miles for fifty years. Get it?

Now, if you have been reading my articles, you know I’m a big proponent of having a goal ride or race on the horizon to motivate you to get off the couch and ride your bike. Fear of failure on a big event is a very good mental cattle prod. There have been many times when I would much rather have been sitting back, relaxing, and eating bonbons than going for a ride. But I put a crowbar under my butt and went simply because the thought of suffering through an event and rueing the fact that I could have trained better was too much to bear. Motivation!

Dustin has been an avid mountain biker for many years, but his rides have been around ten miles, so this was going to be a serious challenge. He bought himself a stationary bike and really dove into training, which included weekly rides with me.

Pushing your limits is always tough because you really don’t know if you can do something until you actually do it. That’s where I came in. Long rides are some of my happy places in mountain biking, so when Dustin asked for my advice and if I wanted to ride along with him, I jumped on board. Several years earlier, I had done fifty miles for my fiftieth birthday (maybe it’s a midlife crisis sort of thing). I also had ten finishes in the True Grit Epic fifty-mile race, so I had a very good foundation of what I could do and what it would take for him.

It was fun and interesting to see him progress. Each time we hit a new milestone, he commented on how he never thought he would be riding those distances.The first time doing Navajo Drive to Rim Runner and back (a twenty-mile ride), I could tell by his demeanor that he was a bit amazed by his progress even though he was spent at the end. The training day mileage kept going up along with his amazement and toughness. I felt he was really going to make the fifty-miler happen when the night before an expected thirty-five mile ride, he texted me: “Looks like we’re riding in the rain tomorrow. What time should we meet?” You don’t get much more dedicated than that! (Well, maybe the time when there was snow on the ground...)

So, did Dustin meet his goal? Truth be told, the deadline for this article came sooner than I thought, and as of this writing, we haven’t gone for the fifty. But really, does it matter if we completed it or not? To cover my butt, I’ll throw out the old cliché “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.” In this case, it’s true, really. Dustin has vastly improved his fitness by working towards his goal (not to mention the benefits I got as well). Between you and me, I’m pretty sure he’s got it. But that’ll be a story for another day.

About the Author

Mountain bike veteran, amateur filmmaker, and lover of long rides, Jay Bartlett has been riding trails in Southern Utah for over thirty years. Jay has over a decade of experience as a bike mechanic at St. George’s oldest bike shop, Bicycles Unlimited.