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@OfficiaPietatis I wish that I had not lost my first response regarding cycling. But, here goes... I had been seriously injured (3 days in hospital, intestines bruised in 7 places, in potential need of resection, type of injury, which also, as it turned out, herniated a disc
in my low back). At the time, I had my own business, but was unable to do anything but rest on the couch because of new pains. My mesentery was torn, which caused ocassional lighting-type pains across my body. I found myself watching the Tour de France (after not having a TV
since I was married 5 years earlier). At some point, I wondered if a bicycle was the answer to my new fitness dilemma. I purchased one. A city bike. I put 17 miles on during my first ride. I was amazed by that. I had the sense that I could go further [faster] if I had a good
road bike. I purchased a Trek (It was a year that Lance Armstrong won the Tour). I bought his book, It& #39;s Not About the Bike. Among the first pages I found the words: "Most of cycling is mental. If you can pedal 10 miles, you can pedal 50." After getting used to the seat, which
took about 10 days, I decided to ride from my small town home to my grandfather& #39;s home, which was 70 miles away. It turned out that there was some truth in what Lance had written there. I made it! From then on, I was addicted to road cycling. I would work 10 hour days
and ride my bicycle home from where I was working to my home, up and down a hilly road that resembled the Italian countryside. Most of those trips were just under 45 miles. I reached a point where I was putting on roughly 300 miles/wk on average. One summer, I planned to enter
a road race in northern Wisconsin that included some quite serious riders. The average speed was somewhere around 25 miles per hour. The next day, there was a 2 miles all-out run. Now, to most triathletes, this might sound boring. But the speeds are different, the sport is
different. I felt like an athlete for the first time in my life. I had put years into serious riding and winter training on a spinning bike. I was considering regular amateur races in the cities. I was capable of maintaining a speed of 30mph flat-out for some distance, and
keeping my heart at 165bpm during sprints. There was a large hill across town from my home. I drove there, undloaded my bike, and spent hours pushing my body up the hill as hard as I could go; coast down, then back up, until I could no longer stay upright. However, it was
the year of my plan to enter the Wisconsin road race that my body began to pain me to the point where I required surgical intervention. It was not because of the bicycling, but due to congenital problems that finally came to a head and left me in need of help. The stamina that I
gained from cycling helped me to carry on well, until I found help. That stamina helped me to recover strong post surgery. But a surgeon ended-up making a mistake on my back that cost me dearly and from which I never quite recovered the same from. I now have a carbon-fiber Fuji
(2 of them) that I hope to be able to ride again after my next spine surgery. That is an open question that I will not be able to find an answer to until next year. I will never be able to do 30mph again, but I would settle for 10mph in the park, at this point--quite happily. END
[OK, NOT QUITE THE END...] I should mention that I was very aware of how cycling burns muscle because of its nature. I was strong enough to leg press 400 pounds easily (max on that machine), which I did for 3 sets of 15. I did that 3x/wk. I miss lifting heavy, to be sure.
