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Seventy six is not old to die these days and perhaps he would have lived longer had he not cycled quite so enthusiastically. It’s a fine line between healthy exercise and overdoing it. Similarly, Steve Jobs would probably be alive today had he not put his faith in alternative medicine when he was diagnosed with cancer. As a New Age Buddhist convert, he came round to proper medicine in the end but it was too late. There are many premature deaths in Hollywood due to so-called health regimes, cod cures and quackery.
Are you being deliberately provocative, Richard, or is this the real unbelievably patronizing, prejudiced, pompous, overweening, arrogant, presumptuous, conceited, self-aggrandizing, egocentric you?
These people would still be alive if only they were as clever and wise and educated and intelligent and conventional as you?????
Go and tell that to their families and friends.
“If only, we can’t help thinking, his family had known about the Rev Paul Sinclair’s bicycle hearse.”
Precisely, Charles; and we can’t help thinking either, can we, if only his family’s chosen funeral director hadn’t been such an indolent layabout…
Ah, Jonathon, invective is one thing but as Grandgrind said ‘Facts,facts, facts’. Cycling is actually a great prophylactic against involvement with the dismal trades. This from the Cycling Touring Club’s research into its benefits: People who cycle regularly in mid-adulthood typically enjoy a level of fitness equivalent to someone 10 years younger, and their life expectancy is two years above the average. (The latter finding is also borne out by an unpublished analysis of CTC members’ obituaries). A population-wide study in Copenhagen found that, compared with those who cycled regularly to work, people who did not do so had a… Read more »
Jonathan, with all respect I think you over-reacted. It’s a fact cycling and other forms of exercise are good for you. It’s also a fact, we must slow down with age. I wasn’t trying to demonstrate how wise I am: I happen to lead an insufficiently healthy lifestyle and could well die before 76 as a result.
Richard, your initial comments are over-simplistic, self-observing, and sadly tarnish a rather beautiful account of a man’s natural death. A man who had, for whatever reason, reached his allotted span, which ended in a way which seems to have given his family a feeling of satisfying completion. Sometimes there is a lot to be said about keeping our opinions to ourselves, if only out of consideration and kindness to a bereaved family. Vale, I’m in agreement with you about the life-enhancing benefits for cyclists. Apart from the proportion which are regularly squished by trucks, of course. They may have been… Read more »
I’ve always been a two wheels good four wheels bad sort of person Sweetpea. I dream of becoming the Cycling Celebrant – but distances do defeat you. Still I’m currently saving pennies from my miserly stipend to buy a real Dutch bike. I can really see myself, overcoat billowing, trundling up to the local Crem on one of those. Interesting about Steve Jobs illness and death. He was rueful about his earlier commitment to alternative therapies to tackle his cancer. He knew he had shortened his own life. But, if you read about him, I think he accepted the choices… Read more »
Sweetpea I don’t precede every point I make with clarifications to pacify predictable angry responses. I could easily have preceded my brief observation with how I’m charmed by the cyclist and in awe of Job’s achievements; how I offer my condolences to their families; how they both had good innings, whether or not one over-exerted himself with exercise, and the other declined treatments that might have saved his life, etc etc. However, as you say, some things don’t need to be said: such padding would be verbose, too much about the writer rather than the thought being thrown out there.… Read more »
No, Richard, I’m not expecting to preface every comment you make with an all-inclusive round up, enlightening though that may be. Jonathan certainly expresses his thoughts in his own sweet manner, and that is what we love about him. And I am sure he is the very last person to want to stifle debate or to impose censorship. However, to return to the point in hand, I am still at a loss to see what your comments added to this debate, both in taking pot-shots at the wisdom of Mr Mitchell’s excercise regime versus his general state of health (about… Read more »
Sweetpea, I see your point. I’m sorry, and regret the post.
It was a lovely turnout for sure, but I must confess as I look at my shape I’m rather relieved I never had to show up wearing bright blue and yellow lycra!