Old man's bike

[Mortblanc]

I stopped riding bicycles back around 1966 when I got my first issue of the driver's license which we over here considered a "rite of passage" back in those days.

Back in those days $500 would buy you a nice car, $2000 would buy you a new VW or Mustang, insurance was cheap, gas was cheaper ($0.25 for a 4 quart U.S. gallon). At 17 I was driving a 1 year old Mercury Cyclone "hot rod" paid for with super market "bag boy" earnings. Everyone down to the burger flipper at the soda shop had a car.

Riding a bicycle was reserved as transportation for the mentally challenged who could not pass the simple written test or who could not be trusted to place the vehicle in "park" when leaving it empty.

Earlier this year I was instructed by my doctor that constant exercise was imperative to me living the few months I have left to see age 70. He was serious! Sudden onset of type 2 diabetes with my blood sugar levels 5x too high and my A1c 3x too high.

That had thrown my cholesterol levels out of sight and my blood pressure along with it.

Cardio exercise was part of the over-all program and could not be ignored. For me that meant walking or biking.

My feet have become very messed up in the past few months, so walking had become a problem causing me both physical and mental issues. Becoming a crippled up old man.

My exercise alternative was a stationary bicycle. Allows me good exercise even in bad weather with no load on my feet.

I began with 1/2 hour daily and have worked up to 1 hour daily, which is about all I really need.

Glad to report that I have all things under control now and feeling much better, along with a 20 pound weight drop and more coming off as time goes by, since the diet I am on is a lifetime thing. If I go off it my life will end! That kind of lifetime thing.

No "choices" on this one as well as no cheating or that famous line "just a taste won't hurt!". I had "just a bite" of mince pie over the last holiday and my blood sugar was messed up for days.

At any rate this bike riding thing has become almost an obsession and I realized that if I were on the road I would be putting lots of miles behind me at 12 mph. A couple of trips to the village and back daily or a trip to the closest big supermarket daily, and if I lined the miles up end to end I would have been half way across the U.S. since I bought the bike.

All that being said, I do have a "real bike" out in the shed. It is an adult size "mountain bike" from some cheap maker here in the States. Not a racing model or anything of the sort. I believe that when spring rolls around again I might get it out install new tires, oil it up and start using it for quick trips around the country side.

All of my bicycling being done as a youngster, and for recreational purposes and not real transportation, what can any long term bikers recommend for luggage/grocery transport (not going with any wagon or such) and protective gear?