Glad to see you are pursuing your dream, even if it ends up being only you and one other or just you whichever you are the one to make it happen. I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

I took up bicycle riding almost 7 years ago. I had been a life long jogger but due to a total knee replacement could no longer participate in that activity. For five years following the knee replacement I became a couch potato not doing anything in the way of exercise. During those five years I gained over 50 lbs. Worse my mental attitude was in the WC. It can be safely assumed I was depressed. Realizing my depression and need to fight it I knew I had to once again begin exercising. I thought bicycling was the closest to jogging for me. Due to my extreme out of shape condition I was only able to ride a bicycle 4 miles when I first began. Also I found the bicycle caused me substantial physical discomfort. In an attempt to see if there was a way to make bicycling more enjoyable of an experience I went to bicycle shop that did fitting of rider to bike. The bicycle I had been riding was much too large a frame and none of the vital fit points came close to what they should have been for me. Wow! Getting a bike fitted to match my body geometry made a world of difference. Almost immediately I went from riding fewer than 10 miles per outing to 15-25 miles. Most of the discomfort of riding was gone. The exception was saddle comfort and I literally tried 22 saddles over the course of a year before settling on one I liked. In summary; first sure get a bicycle fitted to you and second start slow and build your miles up over the course of several months.For the last 6 years I have averaged 3,000 miles on a bicycle annually in 150 +/- outings. I supplement my bicycle riding with an indoor spin trainer when the weather is bad outside. I also weight train with light weights and high repetition about 35 times annually, mostly during the winter months. What I don’t do but very much encourage you to do is to do about 5 minutes of stretching before and after each workout. My New Year resolution is to force myself to do stretching this year. The few times I have done stretching exercises I have fewer aches especially after longer rides.

Having a POSITIVE MENTAL ATTIDUDE is all important in anything you do in life. I can testify to this truth as time and time again in my life I have accomplished what others thought I couldn’t do or were amazed I did to whatever the project. For example during my ride across America this past summer one particular stranger when he learned what I had done looked at me and said, “Excuse me you don’t hardly look like you can ride a bicycle let alone ride one over 4,000 miles. At that time I had just completed riding across the mid-section of America about 4,000 miles still well short of my goal to ride corner to corner another 2,000+ miles to go. You see even with all my exercise, I still am over weight. I like my beer and food. There are many things I think about to keep a positive mental attitude the most important to me are the folks I meet on my journeys. We can discuss more about keeping a POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE in future discussions.

I encourage you to pursue your dreams, keep a positive attitude and check in with me as often as you like with any questions, comments or concerns.

May the wind always be at your back and happiness in your heart.

Your new friend,

Frank