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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'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'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.
