Don’t we present well? You’ve seen this group before. I wrote about them last year in a story linked here.
You could call us senior citizens. We’re all over 66, with most over 70 and a few within shouting distance of 80. That’s me in the second row, white shirt and sunglasses, shaded by Ernie.
To my left is Bill, who, a month ago, spent a week riding his bike across the state of Iowa. He was joined on that mission by my partner Rebecca, in pink and sitting in front of Bill.
You could call us senior citizens, but I wouldn’t. Ernie would lead the charge. It would be slow but not pretty.
No, perennials is the better label. Read about why below.
The photo was taken last week in Houston, Minnesota. Our group of 16 had just ridden our bikes 31 miles from Lanesboro in southeastern Minnesota to Houston on the Root River State Trail.
We left Lanesboro an hour earlier than planned because the temperature was predicted to reach 100 by noon. That photo was taken at 11:30 a.m., with the shade tree you see making the 99 degrees feel like 99 degrees.
When our cars and trucks carried our bikes and us back to Lanesboro, it was 102.
Along the bike route to Houston, we met two obstacles.
The first was a rattlesnake curled up in the middle of the trail. When one of us tried to take a photo, Mr. Snake had slithered off the path. Later in the day, I asked the owner of our hotel about the rattler. He said he could not remember the last person bitten and that the local hospital no longer carries the expensive serum.
The second hurdle was a hurdle — a large tree that came down the night before covered our path. You can see the assembly line we formed to lift all the bikes over and through the branches.
Perennials know how to organize, cooperate, and cope with unexpected circumstances.
That’s Brenda in the white shirt at the end of the line. Do you see her bike? It’s an E-Bike with an electric motor and battery that provides pedal assistance. Thirteen of our group have transitioned to motorized bicycles in the last few years. More on this below, but E-Bikes were a heavy lift through that maze.
The only holdouts are Bill, Rebecca, and me. Bill and Rebecca are bicycle purists, so they have not considered this option, even with last week’s steamy temperatures.
Me? I temporarily went to the dark side on another group bike excursion in Missouri earlier this summer. You can see that 60-pound E-sucker below.
Pedal-assisted bikes weigh about twenty pounds more than regular bikes. See the relatively broad kickstand. With this bike, I could get a pedal boost of up to 28 MPH. It also included a throttle that I used occasionally. When I applied the hand brakes, the motor was disabled. The oblong battery required recharging after 60 miles.
I rented an E-bike to test the motorized bike experience and my reaction to what I consider an age-related accommodation. The weightier cycle took some getting used to, particularly when braking and maneuvering through narrower parts of the trail.
But I loved the confidence it gave me when applying the boost going up a hill or into the wind. And that little rain storm that hit us five miles from our destination, I throttled up to 28 miles with no care in the world.
Our E-Bike friends tell us the pedal assist keeps them on the bike trail. The photo below was taken after another day of biking in Minnesota — 21 miles with a cool 90-degree temperature.
My mother lived to be 96, stubbornly refusing most age-related assistance. I use the word stubborn intentionally, as even six years after her death, my two brothers and I talk about how difficult she often made life for those around her. If only she had gotten a hearing aid at 60, we say, and then trail off as the older we get, we are slowly coming to understand her perspective.
Admitting the need for a hearing aid meant accepting the inevitability of bodily decay, of death.
Who wants to go down that path? Isn’t it better to resist?
Our friends’ E-bike experience suggests another choice. For most of them, without the E-bike, they would not have ridden on either day. And if they didn’t ride, neither would Bill, Rebecca, and me. And there would have been no Missouri bike adventure. All of a sudden, life can get smaller.
Who wants to go down that path? Isn’t it better to resist?
When you think about it, at every stage in life, not only in our last quarter, we are constantly adjusting to what life throws at us. I yearned to play varsity basketball in high school, dreamed about it, and shot basket after basket at the hoop my dad hammered into the side of the garage to make it happen.
Yet my 5’7″ frame blocked my way every bit as much as my declining muscle mass and energy signal that an E-Bike is just around the corner. I decided to join the swim team.
When to hold ’em and when to fold ‘em was Kenny Roger’s pop version of Aristotle’s Golden Mean approach to life. Each offers a path through the middle.
With only an occasional rattlesnake. That is minding its own business.
Find the E-balance between extremes.
