Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast
Apologies if you woke up this morning and hoped for a day in which you didn’t feel lame. Because this isn’t going to help: Klaus Obermeyer just turned 100, and he has been celebrating the way a ski legend should, with a daily half-mile swim, long stints in the gym and, of course, skiing. Warned...
The Soft Bigotry of Age Brackets
Age gives one a good, heavy rind. A durable crust that preserves the psyche and reduces the faint sting of left-handed compliments and micro-aggressions. Pride is still there, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that you do have limits. And failures. But still, repeated slights—no matter how subtle—get under the husk from time to time....
A mid-season reminder that (some) seniors ski free (or cheap) in (some) places
Ski resorts are expensive to operate. Leases, insurance, lift maintenance, lift-operator maintenance, those groomers high up on the mountain with their lonely headlights casting shadows across steep runs as you stumble back from dinner and drinks. When you factor in all that’s required to keep everyone safe and happy, those shockingly dear lift tickets are...
Old dogs. Better tricks.
The typical drill here is to pick stumble on a topic, do the minimum of research, then pass it along to you with enough information so you can dig deeper into source material. Every so often, though, we’ll glom onto a single story that offers particularly good insight and just refer you to it. Seniors...
Your adventure went too far
Bicycling.com—an entertaining and informative web site—has an article about Al Newman, a hard-driving, semi-retired, 73-year-old entrepreneur who just rode his bike around Antarctica and thereby completed his quest to cycle on all seven continents. Reaction one: Whoa. Atta boy. Reaction two: I wish the article had been a little less evasive about how long he...
Let’s not get too excited about e-bikes
E-bikes—already a big deal—are bound to get bigger. Analysts expect the global market to grow by 60 percent or more by 2025, with at least one major European bike maker projecting that it will soon sell more e-bikes than regular bikes. Giant, the world’s largest bike-maker, expects e-bike sales to increase by 30 percent this...
Ladies: eat, pray and stretch that check
They’re homebodies. And they’re affiliative, depending on social and emotional bonds to get through daily life…or so we assume, because when they travel they like to travel with others. And by they, we mean men. Editors for International Living—the on-line and print publication that encourages retirees to find new adventures and, crucially, save money by...
Biking might allay Parkinson’s symptoms
Human bodies age like a saddle: they get comfortable and develop character, but they also start to break down. The older they get, the more problems they have, one of which is Parkinson’s disease. An estimated one percent of people over 60 are affected by this degenerative nervous disorder. Those estimates vary because it’s...
Everyday life and death
You know how this goes. A bunch of olds get together and go on regular bike rides. Some are 90. Some are disabled. They click off 25 miles and adjourn to the bar, or have a nice salad over lunch. You don’t care and why should you. Except that the difference between doing this...
Bicycle crank
As people age, they seem to transition from passionate soul to old crank. At least the lucky ones, who have been blessed or cursed with something they love. Or are obsessed with. (The distinction gets hazy with some passions and some people.) Call it anything you like. We are in love with/obsessed by people...
Oldsters one-upping each other at the top of the world
On Everest, there’s always someone older coming up behind you Back in 2008, Japan’s (then) 75-year-old Yuichiro Miura was about to set the record for being the oldest person to climb Mount Everest—until Nepal’s 76-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan beat him out, getting there one day ahead of him. There was no trash talking...
Hiking for thrill-seekers
How did the walkabout become benign? A hundred-and-some years ago, “a long walk” could have meant raw-boned pioneers thrusting themselves into uncharted territory. Predators, starvation and meteorological calamities. Today, it usually means something so safe you could do it on a first date with a stranger you met through Match.com. You don’t get...
