I haven't owned a bicycle for nearly fifty years.

[caption id="attachment_1791" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="My old bike (sort of)"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bike_huffy_radiobike1a_550-300x186.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1791" title="bike_huffy_radiobike1a_550-300x186" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bike_huffy_radiobike1a_550-300x186.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="186" /></a>[/caption]

I had one when I was a kid, a basic one-speed Huffy bike (not the one in the picture, but close). I don't know how much it cost, because my parents bought it for me, but the kid in Stephen King's "Hearts in Atlantis" was saving for a similar bike and it was $25.

It was a relatively simple bike. You pedaled to go forward and pushed back on the pedal to slow down or stop. There weren't any gears, so there were plenty of times I had to dismount and walk my bike to the top of the hill.

By the time I was in my teens -- the mid 1960s -- 10-speed bikes were starting to come on the market. We called them "English racers," but I'm not sure why. I doubt that the UK was the only place people were riding them.

I guess I rode my bike for the last time when I was 13 or 14, and as best as I can recall, the only time I have been on a bicycle since was three years or so ago when Nicole and I rode a tandem bike at Huntington Beach.

That might have been the end of it, except that my son started doing triathlons. Running, swimming, cycling. He was good at it and he stretched out to where he ran in the L.A. Marathon -- breaking 3:30 his first time out -- and eventually working up to where he was doing Ironman Triathlons. In May 2009, at the age of 24, he swam 2.2 miles in the Mediterranean Sea, raced for 115 miles in the mountains just outside Nice, France, and then ran 26.2 miles along the beach.

[caption id="attachment_1792" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Virgile in Nice"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CSC_0089.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1792" title="CSC_0089" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CSC_0089-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

This kid isn't just a man, he's a horse.

Virgile started with a fairly nice bike, moved up to a really nice one and finally stepped up to one he assembled himself from components. My guess is that it would probably cost him three or four thousand dollars in a store. Plus he's got all kinds of great clothes, helmets and other stuff.

But it's pretty obvious that it has been worth every penny. Virgile is 27 years old, has a sedentary job and doesn't have an ounce of fat anywhere on his body. He has formed good habits that became a good lifestyle. I couldn't be more proud of him.

Anyone who follows this Website  knows that two years ago, I spent six months getting into great shape. Then I spent the next year losing all the progress I had made. Now I have to figure out how to get back to where I once belonged.

I had a small windfall recently. I played a few fantasy baseball leagues online and I actually won two of them for a total of $1,300.

I had been thinking for a while about getting a bike, and I priced some at Walmart. The most expensive one was $499, but I knew I wasn't going to buy anything without discussing it with my son. When it had looked for a while as though I might win only one of the leagues (and take second place in the other), I figured maybe I could spend $600 or so on a bike.

When I won the second league, though, I started thinking a little bigger. Virgile pointed me to the <a title="Performance Bicycle" href="http://www.performancebike.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCategories_10052_10551_-1?">Performance Bicycle Website</a> and I realized there were some amazing bicycles out there. In the category of Road Bikes -- which is what I wanted -- I saw one on sale for $5,999, marked down from $6,899. Wow! I actually bought a nearly new Camaro in 1975 for less than half that amount.

[caption id="attachment_1794" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="My new bike"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/31-0464-WHI-ANGLE.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1794" title="31-0464-WHI-ANGLE" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/31-0464-WHI-ANGLE-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

Of course I wasn't buying anything in that price range, but Virgile recommended a really nice-looking bike for $1,319 that was on sale for $999.

I ordered it online, and it's going to be delivered to the Performance Bicycle store on the north side of Atlanta in a couple of weeks. They will assemble it, although it's actually going to cost me a little more than I thought because it comes without pedals.

There's an old expression that basically says once you learn to ride a bike, you never lose that skill. I'm not sure that applies to me here. Not so much because of age, but look at the differences between the two bicycles pictured. On the Huffy, you ride sitting up and you brake by pushing back on the pedal.

On this Fuji Roubaix 2.0 road bike, you sit high and lean way down to hold the handles. There are gears that give the bike 20 different settings, something I'm going to have to learn from the beginning. And the brakes are hand brakes. All I will be doing with the pedals is pumping.

It's going to take time, but I am going to learn how to do it. Cycling will give me an extra tool in working to get myself back into shape.

It's also a challenge, and at this point in my life, challenges are good for me.

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