Riding to Health
Who said vigorous exercise doesn’t matter, especially among baby boomers?! When we get old enough for a few gray hairs, exercise becomes even more important. For BoomerCafé co-founder and executive editor Greg Dobbs, regular and demanding rides on his bicycle have actually saved his life.
There are century bike rides each summer in Colorado. “Century” means, a hundred … as in, a hundred miles. But by the time you’re anywhere near the hundred mile mark, especially on century rides in a state where the altitude of mountain roads rises into the quintuple digits, you’re counting not just every mile but every single foot, which is why I’ll go to pains to point out, the total mileage usually comes out to more like 102, 103 … I remember one that ended up at 108 miles.
The earliest century ride in Colorado comes the first weekend in June; it’s called the Elephant Rock. It begins and ends in the small city of Castle Rock, a bit south of Denver, and every time I’ve ridden it, it’s made enduring memories. Some aren’t so sweet, from the route near the end that takes you up a hellishly steep hill I have nicknamed “the wall,” to the fierce southbound wind that makes the final northbound stretch along I-25 feel like a whole century ride itself!
But none is more memorable than my Elephant Rock ride in 2001. Why? Because I was just 54 years old but had a heart attack!
In retrospect, I’d had a couple of smaller heart attacks in the preceding week, while training my winter-idled body for the Elephant Rock on a small mountain called Bergen Peak in Evergreen, Colorado, where I live. I thought the burning sensation in my chest was heartburn or acid reflux, neither of which I’d ever had before, but there’s a first time for everything. So I kept riding.
Then, riding with a friend in the Elephant Rock, I had the same kind of burning, but stronger. So not long before the first official rest stop, I stopped. I told my friend what I was feeling, but being as ignorant as I am, he didn’t recognize the signs of a heart attack any more than I did. After being still for 10 or 15 minutes, we got back on our bikes … and finished the ride.
When I got home that night and told my wife what had happened, she was smarter than my friend and I were, and said, Get yourself to the doctor! … which I did, and when I had yet a fourth attack right there in his examining room, I barely had time to clutch my chest before he had me in an ambulance and, not long after that, in surgery.
The thing is, I asked my cardiologist — none of us has a cardiologist on standby; I met mine in the emergency room — whether my bike-riding had caused the heart attacks, or saved me despite them. His answer was something any bicyclist needs to know: because of the time I spend on bikes, my heart, which is a muscle, was strong. Strong enough to withstand the blood stoppages that blocked arteries were causing.
What caused the blockages was heredity — a propensity to develop plaque, which plagued both my father and his father with bad hearts. What kept me going, was biking.
And that’s why I ride my bike nowadays more than ever. Including a couple of Elephant Rocks since my open heart surgery in 2001. I don’t worry that it’s going to stress the heart; I’m confident that it’s going to keep it strong!
One immodest postscript: in September 2006 I was on the east coast for business, and at a friend’s urging I flew to New York City for the annual NYC Century Bike Tour. It begins in Central Park, cuts south through Manhattan, then goes through and around Brooklyn, and Queens, and the Bronx, and ends back where it started. I’m a leading-edge boomer, 61 years old, and ought to have been at the rear of the pack. But instead I kept riding forward from every pack I joined. Why? Because you can pedal your bike every day of the year in New York City and you won’t develop legs or lungs like a Coloradoan’s. And where do we get those legs and lungs? On rides like the Elephant Rock!
Category: Baby Boomers, Exercise & Sports, Greg Dobbs, Health & Wellness, Lifestyle
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Every word of what Greg writes is true! Ride a bicycle … stay healthy and young.
GF
LOVED this story, Greg! I’ve been to Evergreen, Colorado and know the terrain you describe. I’ve done several rides here in California, but nothing like the mountainous areas you ride. Good on ya!
By the way, my mother-in-law (in her late 70s) belongs to a bike club and pedals her way all over the beaches and hilly wine country areas of California … and she looks 20 years younger than her age because of it.
KEEP ON PEDALING!!!
Hi, My friend told me that, cause yesterday all day I had heartburn and kept drinking milk, and mineral water for where I can calm it down, I remember having it with my last two pregnancies and my kids had a lot of hair when they were born. I mean, i remember having heartburn here and there with my kids and they didnt had alot of hair.