Being middle aged/old and staying 'rad'!

I started doing more jumps this year. Bought a DJ bike (which is great fun at the pump track but still scares the shit out of me on anything bigger than small to medium sized jumps).
Progressed quite a lot which is great.

All of this is trying too hard and none of it is cool.

But I don't care.

Not caring is one of the benefits of being older! Embrace it!

And

It's cool to not care isn't it? Grapple that paradox eh!

Be you, others will adjust*

*Borrowed, not mine

My attempt at middle aged radness - boring middle aged car (Berlingo), attempting to cling onto my youth stickers.

Fail.

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Riding MTBs pretty fast and (sometimes) keeping up with youngsters works for me.

No jibbing though. I don't want to end up in A&E unless I really have to.

And keeping up with electronic music, to an extent.

Just doing things that I'm genuinely excited by, I don't think that can be "trying too hard", can it?

Best thing for me was having a kid growing up and getting into sporty stuff while I was in my 50s - great excuse to get the skateboard out and go scooting round while he was on his scooter... great excuse to start learning to actually jump the bike, when he wanted to go to bike parks. Got back into rugby cos he wanted to play in his early teens (touch rugby only for me, or I'd have no knees left!). He's buggered off to Uni now though, and there's not the same incentive to get the board out...
Continued with rugby in a refereeing capacity which means a lot of running about keeping up with youngsters on a weekend. 🙂
60 approaching fast, and a lot of it hurts the joints, but I ain't stopping! 😛

Staying rad implies an initial state of being rad. I've comprehensively failed at that first hurdle.

I took up crown green bowls this summer! 🤘 🤘

Your starting point makes a difference. Some people are middle aged in their 20s and seemingly can't wait for their actual age to catch up with their mental age. Once you get to middle age, there are the crowd that aspire to be retired and become prematurely beige. Others rail against it and go kicking and screaming into their dotage.

Luck and circumstance play a part too. People's bodies break, people spend their none working hours supporting elderly parents. Some people get broken by the world of work. Don't judge until you've walked a mile in their shoes and all that.

Be interested to know what people do to keep themselves feeling young and alive…but preferably not in an old man trying too hard way!

Don't stop caring about things and fall into the old traps of, I know it all, have heard it all.
Ride and hang out with younger folk, sometimes it's like being an energy vampire.
Always look for something new to learn/find out about.
For me, music has to be near the top of this list.
Don't let anyone else clothes shop for you, but be prepared to accept guidance from family and friends if you go too Mr Tumble

That was a lovely little film and good practice for French audio comprehension (had to block the sub titles).

Ask @weeksy how to stay rad, reckons he sticks his posts through a pink bike AI Rad converter 🤣

but preferably not in an old man trying too hard way!

I'd discount any replies you get on here then.🤣

Fat old blokes bimbling around will never be rad.

Jealous of anyone who gets to wake up in Nice and go skating at the beach. It's hard to stay positive when you wake up to black skies and pissing rain every day for 5 months of the year.

I do have a DJ bike though. If anyone wants to ride or is DJ-curious and wants to try it I can play out around Sheffield.

I spend most of the day being beautiful 🙂

Dirt bag road trips. BMX and MTB. I tend to keep things pretty safe but every so often push myself.

I doubt if I was ever ‘rad’ but playing drums in a rock band helps me keep thinking I’m 18. And then I look in the mirror…

I think I was less rad when I was young(er) trying to be cool. I'm 46 now and feel happy and confident with how I've turned out and give far less of a monkey's what anyone else thinks now. I just do my thing, have nothing to prove and it feels pretty rad... learning to relax on my bike and just enjoy it for myself definitely helped. The same with not constantly trying to out-cave my peers. If I'm slower now they're the ones who wait 🙂

I work with a couple of guys in their early sixties and all I hear is complaints about modern music being crap and how awful young people are. Why do these people decide all of a sudden that they have all the answers (these two certainly don't) and that any further progression isn't needed. 52 here, just finished my PADI Open Water in Gozo with my son and looking forward to progressing my sky diving. Rage hard against the dying light (johndrummer, that looks epic).

I just be me

Never sure if that is cool, sad, dangerous or just a bit odd.

I got invited to a guys 21st birthday last week and knew a fair proportion of the guys there - not all through cycling. I am mid-fifties so not sure if that makes me 'down with the kids' or 'down on the register'.

<blushes/>

There's no 'staying rad' for me. There are occasional moments of fleeting radness though in my mind. A trail well ridden, a dad-gap sent, or a hard boulder problem (by my average standards) sent and for a few seconds I feel rad.

Mind you I am measuring in seconds per week or month here. Nothing really but better than nowt.

Age is just a number that no one but you cares about. I can remember laughing at myself on my 32nd birthday becasue I was going to take the day off to go and play in the woods on my bike, and I'm still doing it now.

Entierement d'accord avec ce mec. Top.

I stay 'rad' by listening to mediaevel polyphony music and singing in a choir.

Slaying it

Dirt bag road trips. BMX and MTB.

That's what I miss the most, we were talking about this at work today.

Having a big gang of mates to call on and take off somewhere at the drop of a hat. There's absolutely none of that now.

Not that I want to sleep on beaches or in hedges or meet erm, hospitable women everywhere, but ya know, just a little sniff of adventure would be good.

Some people are middle aged in their 20s and seemingly can’t wait for their actual age to catch up with their mental age.

All my in-laws are like this. I'm slightly older than all of them and it's like they never had any fun period in their lives. All they talk about is work and mortgages. It's actually painful to be around.

Fabulous, simple and inspiring film, the French do seem to 'get' the importance of the quality of life better than we do

I've never been cool or rad.

Therefore I'm unable to stay rad.

I'm good with all that.

Middle aged (if I'm going to live to my mid 90s). I haven't been able to get out to the trails as much as I'd like in my forties. As my forties began my riding was becming more urban, riding stairsets, drops off benches etc, I was starting to try to ride onto things, and push how high I'd dare to drop off them (never more than handlebar height). Five years ago I decided to see how far I could get through the journey of learning (mountain bike) trials. This year I haven't practiced as much as I'd like, and when I have, it's been a struggle with nerves and tension. Yesterday I was trying to rear wheel hop onto a concrete flower pot, about 1ft high, 7" dia, pause as long as I could (1 second lol) before hopping off it. I'm capable of doing it. One try however and the rear wheel didn't quite connect and slipped off. I didn't loose control and fall off the bike, but did realize just how strong my fear of looping out is! Really raised my heart rate. Can't do a controlled wheelie, can't do a controlled manual, can only do small jumps. I've never been very rad!

I think the idea of a middle aged street trials gang. I'd be up for hopping on and dropping off stuff.

Give it a go! I know of a few middle aged (and older) people riding trials who I follow on instagram who have started later in life, and there's a few (40+) who started young and are still going. I'm below average, most people seem to pick it up a little quicker (depending on how rad they were beforehand). It still takes commitment to get over the difficulty hurdle however.

i dont ever want to be, or have never been rad.

i like being comfy. i have lived my life trying to be comfy. comfy is nice.

I've got a Rad that needs bleeding, does that count 😊

I stay ‘rad’ by listening to mediaevel polyphony music

Pff, the cool kids are listening to bardcore these days.

Back in 2010 aged 53 I worked as a Chalet maid for the Summer in Whistler 🤟🤟🤟

Not that I want to sleep on beaches or in hedges or meet erm, hospitable women everywhere, but ya know, just a little sniff of adventure would be good.

Lol. Yeah degrees of dirt bagging. I have a van so some what luxury with a sleeping bag in The back but still sleep anywhere in it and go off afor a few long weekends.

bardcore

*Applauds*

aged 53 I worked as a Chalet maid for the Summer in Whistler

*Also applauds*

State of mind. Certainly not state of body 😆

Age 54. I still do decent sized jumps & drops. Practice wheelies every week as I have a 9 mile ride each way on gravel roads to meet my mates for a ride. I try to wheelie a lot of it.

I’ve always done weights, I think it helps keep you young.

I balance this by wearing socks & Birkenstocks around the house. It’s a paRADox.

Hat, beard, board.......no, not nailed it

https://flic.kr/p/H5QiJa

I entered my first DH race in 10years last year (been racing Enduro in between) and did another earlier this year. Vet category.....started racing in youth, jeeeeez! Attempting ballsy lines definitely makes you feel rad, even if you're not nailing them!

no, not nailed it

I don't think a humorous bicycling t-shirt helps matters 😀

Started skydiving at 45, won my first national medal (gold) this year at 49. I keep thinking about what would have happened if I had started 20 years earlier, but then I realise that I would probably poor. Very poor. And probably living on a caravan.

Radical is as radical does.

Dirt bagging round Andalusia in my van shredding enduro trails and riding quiet mountain roads for a few months. Totally rad in my eyes old and rubbish to couple of 20 year olds I've ridden with who have far more skill than I'll ever have, had. Off to work on a horse ranch for two weeks starting next week, grew up watching too many cowboy films. It's never ending routine that does for you and you get old because you stop etc.....

Age 54. I still do decent sized jumps & drops. Practice wheelies every week <br /><br />

I’ve a 60 year old mate that started riding a few years ago. It’s become his thing now. He just won all the state enduro races he entered in his age group, plus the 100km singletrack Epic, he learnt how to wheelie off the kids down his street and last week broke his scapula over jumping a gap.

His last big crash was (sort of) captured on camera.

As for me. I’m not Rad.

But my bike is:

I'm a Scout Leader who makes model kits and likes wearing slippers.

Deal with it.

likes wearing slippers

Love slippers! Espesh with a cup of Yorkshire tea.

Be interested to know what people do to keep themselves feeling young and alive…but preferably not in an old man trying too hard way!

Basically, by never having given a rats ass what other people think about what I do, read, dress or listen to. As a direct result most people assume I’m around twenty odd years younger than I am. I was never ‘rad’, so I’ve got no ‘radness’ to lose or care about.
Simples. 😁

Just watched the video above ☝🏼and it looks like the first guy who piled in came off better than his bike! That looks like more than a zip tie and duct tape fix, more like phuct!
And that was horribly close to a multiple vehicle pile-up.

Hope he was ok.

@reeksy ... Went just a touch deep there 😬

👆I like how the cameraman carries on filming instead of stopping a hundred other riders from sending it into the casualty 😂

My theory is that you have to keep learning new things - either within an existing activity, or by trying something new. It has to take you outside your comfort zone, but that doesn't mean risking your neck - could be stepping on stage as a musician after 10 years practicing alone, just as much as trying to really deck out your rock to fakies (ahem..) 😀

Along with Franck skateboarding at 70… here’s Jim Martin, who first learned to skateboard aged 50

My theory is that you have to keep learning new things – either within an existing activity, or by trying something new. It has to take you outside your comfort zone, but that doesn’t mean risking your neck<br /><br />

I still have my bikes, and I’m planning on getting the S/S out and having the seat-stay modified to enable a Gates belt-drive, which will lighten an already light bike - On-One Inbred 853, carbon bars and forks, Hope hubs and 4-pot discs, then getting some D3O knee pads, because it was coming off that bike at walking speed that has left me with significant discomfort in my left knee, with subsequent loss of confidence. There aren’t any similar things I’m interested in, although maybe the knee armour might encourage me to give the longboard another go. I really can’t see myself taking up bowls, although there’s a club practically behind my house, but the archery I’ve started recently at least might improve my muscle tone across my shoulders! Plus it doesn’t involve anything more than a stroll to the target to retrieve my arrows and tot up the score. 😁

 I really can’t see myself taking up bowls,

Skate bowls yeah?

A year before my Whistler Summer I was diagnosed with Osteoporosis and they found 2 crushed vertebrae in my spine , I was advised to never ride a bike off road again.🤔

After Whistler I rode Moab , Tahoe , an epic BC road trip so definitely took it easy 🤔

I say ‘dude’ at the end of every sentence. I’m pretty sure that makes the kids think I’m one of them. Dude.

Learn new things is a good one. Today I stripped and reassembled a headset for the first time, and I only got it wrong once! Tomorrow I will make sugar free flapjack

Do as you will. Don’t worry too much about what others think, but do have some self awareness:

Hmm, I’m so old I cannot use tech properly. My above post should have finished with this image:

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👆I like how the cameraman carries on filming instead of stopping a hundred other riders from sending it into the casualty <br /><br />

I made the same point. To hit that road gap you need to commit to another gap before that at a fair pace, but in theory you should be able to see all the way down the hill and make a judgement early enough.

Since that crash the landing has been changed. I rode it with the same guys a month or two after and it was fine.

The guy that crashed rode out … albeit with mild concussion symptoms. That probably used to be considered rad.

Socks and Birkenstocks? Isn’t that like socks and sliders? 

I stand by moderate features at trail centres, shouting "send iiiit" every time a rider passes. Also I say "stoked" a lot.

Not really. Never been rad and don't want to be rad.