On Your Left, Middle Age! MTBing With Women Past 50

My good friend Cathy Cody turned 65 this summer. It was a “big birthday” she wasn’t keen on celebrating, but she took it in stride. This grandmother of two lively boys is affectionately called Badass Grandma by our ladies riding group. Cathy has been my steady, favorite mountain biking buddy since we met almost 25 years ago. “Some friends asked me to ride in the late 90s,” she recalls. “Of course, I said yes because it was something new to try and I loved it immediately.” She rode her teenage daughter’s Huffy and then her dad’s hybrid for the first few years. In 2001, she bought her first full suspension mountain bike, a Gary Fisher Sugar.

Cathy and I started riding when mountain biking was still novel on the East Coast. My first whip was a fully rigid Trek with 26-inch wheels and rim brakes. There was no such thing as “flow” trails. We rode mostly with guys, learning by trial and error and a lot of bruises. Today, at age 54, I often ride with co-ed groups, but I have the most fun riding with women. Through my participation in NEMBA (New England Mountain Bike Association) and membership in many informal riding groups on social media, I know there is a strong contingent of female mountain bikers shredding New England trails. My regular ladies group members range in age from mid-thirties to mid-sixties. Most of us could be considered middle-aged.

What are all these “older” women doing riding in the woods!?! Feeling Zen. Feeling confident. Feeling mentally and physically healthy. Enjoying personal challenges and good company. NOT feeling our age—whatever that means.

“Riding is freedom!” says Cathy. “It’s fun, exhilarating, social, and I love being outdoors. I have a super-active mind and when I ride, I need to focus and be in the moment so I don’t crash. It’s the best stress reliever when I’m having a bad day. I’ve developed good friends over the years and explored places I never would have gone if I didn’t ride.”

Both Cathy and I love that our mountain biking community is extremely supportive and inclusive. “I ride with all ages (we often have representation from five decades–20s to 60s) and genders,” she says. “Good mountain biking buddies are fun and supportive. They push you to be a better rider and a better person. They encourage you when you’re having a bad riding day and celebrate with you when you rock the challenging feature or terrain.”

I met Candace Leblanc on a girls’ mountain bike trip to Cape Cod in 2016. We reached out to Cape Cod NEMBA, and their active women’s group kindly gave us guided tours of Otis, Trail of Tears and Yarmouth. We had to hump it to keep up with their speedy crew! Candy started riding in 1984 but took 15 years off after having a baby at age 45. She is now 67 and retired three years ago from military service, 24 years with the Air Force, 13 as a civilian with the Coast Guard. Since her retirement, she has been riding up, down, and across the country–literally. In the last three years, she’s ridden 9,000 miles on her road bike: 4,000 on the Northern Tier, from Oregon to Coney Island, NY in 2021; 3,000 from Key West to Canada in 2022; and 2,000 from Canada to Mexico in 2023. For 2024, she plans to ride 1,000 miles on the LEJOG route, through England, Wales, and Scotland.

Candy also mountain bikes regularly. “I just love the woods and try to be outdoors every day for at least two hours,” she says. “I’m not into techy stuff anymore—I lost my gonads, and I just don’t want to get hurt.” She also doesn’t race anymore (having done the Vermont 50 and local races). Her goal is to keep pedaling and enjoy herself. “I’m just doing mileage now,” she says humbly. “I really don’t think about age. It is not an excuse. People are sometimes amazed at what I do, but there is always someone older!”

That someone is Janet Anderson, aka “J-Ma.” She is 77 and started mountain biking at age 64. “I hadn’t been on a bike since the 1970s, but, ya know, it’s like riding a bike,” she jokes. Janet started riding singletrack on “a little starter hardtail” with her daughter. In 2015, Janet joined a NEMBA beginner ride, got comfortable riding solo, and then accompanied her daughter’s family on a bike vacation at Killington. “I arrived early and took my little hardtail up the lift and down Easy Street a couple of times,” she said. “After that, I was told, ‘You’re scaring us!’ and to ‘buy a real helmet and a real bike.’ So, at age 69, I bought my 5010 and really started trying to learn how to do this.”

Janet has enjoyed serious hiking and horseback riding since her twenties and thirties. “Mountain biking has aspects of both,” she says. “I can ride with others or on my own. I can push myself or just noodle along, and I’m outside and see stuff from different perspectives. A bike’s advantage over horses is that it doesn’t have opinions (I’m not putting my tire in water today.) and won’t get deathly ill at the drop of a hat.” Janet’s been mountain biking with her eight-year-old grandson since he was on a strider. J-Ma is her grandma name and it quickly became her mountain bike community handle. She still rides nearly every Sunday with her grandson. “I love to take him over new-to-him features and trails,” she says. “Hikers and bikers alike ask, ‘Where’s your buddy?” when I ride solo.”

Like many women (of any generation), Janet grew up with a “I can’t do sports” attitude. Over the years hiking, horses, and now mountain biking helped shift her self-image. “I am athletic,” she declares. “For a while, I wanted to bike a little better each year–faster, stronger, tackle harder features. As I get older, my goals now focus on fun, exercise, and the occasional chance to give myself an ‘atta girl’ when I clean something old or new.”

Janet has found great joy volunteering with beginning riders of all ages. The Ledyard Middle School Bike Club leader told her, “You can take a kid who’s scared shitless about trails and soon have them going over little rollers and logs with a grin.” She also likes to peel off with adults struggling in a beginner ride and get them back to the parking lot with smiles and new skills.

Janet’s daughter, Jessica Heuschele, is the second generation of their three-generation mountain bike family. She is 50 and started riding at age 38, when she met her now-husband. “At first it was something I did with him, but after we had our son and I needed something that was ‘mine’, I joined the Quiet Corner NEMBA ladies’ rides and embraced mountain biking fully.” A full-time social worker and full-time mom, Jessica loves the flexibility of mountain biking challenges. “I work to improve on a shorter ride, if that’s all I have time for, by picking harder terrain, setting a faster pace, and/or riding my single speed.” As a mental health professional, she appreciates that mountain biking “is incredibly present-focused. “To ride my best, I can’t look too far back at what I just rode or think too far ahead, and I can’t micro-manage the terrain. I’ve got to give up the brakes, go with the flow, and stay in the moment.”

Challenges all mountain bikers face as we age are slowing down, not healing as fast from injuries, losing your mojo after a crash, or getting stuck in a performance plateau. Jessica recalls the light-bulb moment that un-stuck her from such a plateau when she considered this question: “Isn’t it okay to be average at something and absolutely love it?”

She stopped over-analyzing, started just pointing and pedaling, and things went smoother. “Fast forward to today–about four months past a downhill crash that set my riding way back, “she says. “Even if a hard ride for me today is half the miles and elevation than it was in the spring and I have to carry my bike in places I used to ride, I still freaking love mountain biking.”