Last autumn I bought a used vintage racing bike (Fuji) from another boomer.  He had gradually gained significant poundage over the decades and long ago had moved on to a mountain bike which he uses with his wife and kids.  The racer hung for several decades from the rafters.  Finally he decided it was time to move it out and so put up an ad at one of the local bike shops. I bought it cheap, along with an extra virgin set of wheels with Campagonolo competition rims and hubs.  The bike frame is chrome-moly and the components were the top end of their era.  Unfortunately, both sets of rims had sew up tires!  These are too complicated for words!  AND the tires are glued to the rims.  So, a blow out is a disaster if you don't have a spare wheel following in a chase car.  My ambitions were to use the bike for extensive touring, primarily solo, so I had to have a conventional rim and tire set.  I had the local cycle shop pull the old rims and put on new Campagnolo clincher rims (700mm) and narrow Michelin competition tires (20mm).  I put a rack on the back for a bag and now I'm in business with a fast touring bike!!

This late spring and summer (1999) I have been getting out most evenings and burning up the miles.  I recently bought a Cateye bicycle-computer.  It has the usual odometer and speedometer.  Also it has a cadence display which helps me maintain a high rpm on my pedaling.  I try to pedal at 80-95 revolutions per minute.  This makes for less torque to my knees and helps me maintain a higher speed.  Recently I have been averaging 17 to 18 mph for up to 54 miles (~3 hours).   Here are actual mile's pedaled for an eight week stretch in 1999.

In a 5 week stretch I racked up over 800 miles by myself.  Over this time I'd been pushing myself almost every evening in order to get 35 to 55 miles done per "sitting".  At some point my left pedal crank broke and I was reduced to my old bike while I get the crank replaced.  After taking a pause, I pulled back to 100-135 miles a week so that I could free up some of my evenings for other activities.  But the whole experience has been interesting.  Prior to this I never had thought I was capable of sustaining this type of mileage for more than a couple days. Now I know I could probably do this on nearly year round basis (allowing for weather). Interestingly, with the mild weather the fall and early winter of 1999, I continued to put on miles on the weekend. My last pedal (45 miles)for the year was in the second half of December before the snow fell.