Guest Post

The following post was written by Cory Redmond. She writes a blog and commands a FaceBook page.  You should acquaint yourself with both because she is just generally badass on several levels, is an up and coming endurance mountain biker, an accomplished cyclocross racer, and it's just a fantastic idea to check her out. Cory has the balls to write things you won't let yourself think about, much less say out loud.  I wish I had written this.

Lunatic on Wheels: The Story of a Princess Tomboy and Her Quest for Sanity and the Fountain of Youth

By Gory Dreadmond

When Sasha came to me and asked me if I would write about a piece about why a 40-year old woman rides her bike, I thought, "HECK YES!"

Writing and cycling!  Yays all around!

Then I thought...

Hmmmm...Why exactly DO I ride my bike?

I mean, I know I ride for the obvious benefits of fitness, health, and vanity, but did I have a deeper reason?

Not really.

I mean…YES!

Of course!

I ride my bike because I am an undiagnosed lunatic.

If I didn’t have bike riding as an outlet, I would lose my bleeping mind…cry a lot, eat my emotions, and possibly cause bodily damage to others.

I am forty (4-0) years old and started to feel really old and useless when I was 30 and pregnant.

In the middle of my pregnancy, I had an overwhelming urge to get back on the bike after a 16 or 17 year hiatus. 

I mean, I was never a bike racer or anything cool like that when I was a kid, but I rode everywhere and I rode long.

Once I became an adult, I was like those crabby-ass adults in the Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials…and I REALLY wanted to be the kid.

My then-husband took his Cannondale hybrid (He is 6’1” and I am 5’6” so that was a good option, yeah? No, it was not.) apart to get it ready for me to ride when the baby was born instead of getting my own bike that would actually fit and also be ride-able.  It stayed apart in pieces on the basement floor for another 18 months. I left.

I finally got back on the bike when I was 32; I felt 80.

My rather small A-cups were even saggy and my ass just sort of hung off my back and drooped to my leg tops.

(I paint a lovely picture, no?)

I wasn’t overweight at that time (though I had been many other times in my life), which is why the whole “ass situation” was even more disturbing. I always pretended like this did not bother me when in fact I was freaking right the fuck out.

I started riding and immediately, I became an asshole. 

I mean, it was pretty instantaneous as I rode my sweet assed 5-yr-old hand-me-down MTB around Forest Park like I was effing boss yelling , “LEFT!” and freaking the shit out of rollerbladers and baby-jogging mommies.

I was a dick. Actually, I was the second worst kind of dick (the worst being the garbage-dick variety. EWWWW!) because I didn’t even realize I was a dick. Yep; those are the second worst kinds of dicks. Believe that.

I eventually chilled the fuck out when I bought a road bike and got the hell out of the park.

That bike brought me back to my childhood and I would smile and giggle like a freak show as I rode along dodging giant SUV’s and soccer moms.

I became obsessed with riding.

It was all could talk about.

I felt exactly like those dudes who have a mid-life crisis and buy a canary yellow Corvette…except I was asshole enough to feel like my bean could give their tic-tac peens a run for the money.

(See what I mean? I am a dick. Still.)

When I was 36, I threw myself into cx racing and that was it.

Holy shit!

It was like being in Kindergarten AND in college at the same time!

I could play in mud (and it was encouraged) and they handed out cupcakes and booze!

If I would have discovered this when I was young, I wouldn’t have kids right now…

…or I would have 9 filthy kids because I would have been in a constant state of drunk and sugar-high and down for a party.

*shudders at thought*

Now that I am forty (4-fucking-zero), I have the wisdom/balance that I didn’t have a few years ago and have purchased a bike for everything (EVERYTHING) and have made them each into a “boyfriend”.

SCHWING!

Once I noticed the (free) benefits to my ass from cycling (like tone and lift), I started to use different bikes to work out different body parts.

I still have not figured out how to get bigger boobies while riding, but at least with MTB there is a downhill and they fall forward and look bigger in the race photos.

I ride my cx bike when I want to party or I want to suffer.

I ride my MTB when I want to clear my head, be at peace, or suffer.

I ride my road bike when I want to zone out, it’s raining, my friends are being pussies, I am injured, the sun is not up, or I want to mentally suffer and put things in perspective.

My bikes are sexy and constant.

Because I can mix it up, I am never bored.

They keep me from buying sports cars, liposuction, Botox, and vibrators.

Riding is the single thing that I do that doesn’t make my kids roll their eyes at me like I don’t get it. I get it.

I feel sexy, happy, and strong on my bike.

That last bit is a huge deal to a paper-pushing Ops geek whose most exciting thing some days is when a balance sheet comes together perfectly or MS Vista does not crash.

Why do I ride my bike at 40?

I am a post-menopausal, hormonal nightmare with a full-time job, a college kid about to turn 21 and a 10-year-old female child hitting puberty, two dogs who constantly hump each other, and an ugly minnow that we hoped was a tadpole but isn’t.

Why wouldn’t I ride my bike?

The better question is, why AREN’T you riding yours?