Reflection I: What possessed me?

While riding back with my El Paso Bicycle Club escort on the final 40 miles home, Phil asked, “What possessed you to do this?”

Basically there were two reasons for the trip, both tied to the 20th anniversary of the original Bikecapade.

One, I love Southern New Mexico. As stated in my earlier blogs, I came to El Paso to work as the New Mexico Editor for the El Paso Times. I traveled a lot in Southern NM during those 2 1/2 years I held that post, culminating in the 800-mile Bikecapade. Bikecapade II was conceived as a way of both refamiliarizing myself with the land and also seeing some territory I had not seen before.

The scenery was indeed amazing and I fell in love with Southern New Mexico all over again. In particular, Day 4 will be the grandest memory of the ride — the ride up NM 32 was both the toughest and most beautiful of the journey.

Second, bicycling has become a major passion (my wife calls it an obsession bordering on possession) over the past year and a half. During that time I’ve been become a fairly good cyclist for my age (55) and I was curious how my fitness now might compare to the 35-year-old who tackled the first Bikecapade. So I came up with a route that although not quite as long as the first, would be much more challenging. I rode much longer distances each day (90 miles average compared to under 70 average 20 years ago), over much tougher terrain.

For sentimental reasons, I wanted to also make this a 20th birthday celebration for my Miyata, “Proud Mary,” the bike that carried me on the 1988 tour and for thousands and thousands of miles since. In fact, I have ridden Proud Mary for 12,000 miles since I took up cycling with a vengeance at the end of March 2007. She now will go into official semi-retirement, but remains the bike of choice for in-city errands and hopefully future Bikecapades.

As far as the fitness comparison, the younger Limbird of 1988 could not have kept up with his 55-year-old counterpart of 2008. Cycling an average of 200 miles a week this past year conditioned me to handle whatever hills the road through at me. I did not have any major problems 20 years ago, but overall my energy level seemed higher now. Both Bikecapades, for example, ended with marathon rides (113 miles then, 109 miles this time). Twenty years ago, I had a friend meet me the night before so I could offload my touring gear and ride relatively light to the finish line. I intended to do the same this time, but it didn’t work out – but my pace on the last day was much faster than 20 years ago.

I say this not to brag (OK, I am bragging a bit), but to encourage people to never give up on their fitness. You have no idea of what you may be capable of. Aging is no excuse for taking life easy. In fact, getting older should be the incentive for pushing yourself even harder.

Just before I sat down to write this, I noticed an article in the Sunday paper about “Adventure Fitness.” The idea is to take on an adventure that will challenge you to not get fit in preparation, but also take you to the limits in the adventure itself. Bikecapade II certainly was an example of that.