Fun & Fitness over 50

Rode 30 miles with friend Charles on Sunday. I'm ecstatic. Rode the "new" Raleigh and it performed flawlessly! Charles met me at the house where his wife dropped him off with his bike and riding clothes. He needed his tire pumped up as he had just bought a new tube that morning but my pump did not have a Presta adapter. So we rode by Mad Dog Bikes and used Matt's pump to pump up both of our tires. That was good cause mine needed air too. My floor pump does not work too good. I need to get a good one like Matt's with gauge attached.
I followed Charles' lead. He had a ride in mind that he'd done before which would end up at his house. Then he would give me and bike a ride home. The first leg I was familiar with. Down Van Dyke past the high school then down Meads Lane and past Five Rivers environmental center. Then we took the dreaded Orchard Hill which I have frequently come down but never gone up. I started it once last year when I first began riding again but quit almost immediately as being too hard. I was riding my rigid fork, fat tire Ross MTB then. As I've now got a road bike and am much fitter and Charles said he has done it, I thought, why not? This time I skipped a gear right in the beginning when standing up to pedal so I had to stop. I pushed the bike a little to a slightly less steep spot and finished the hill from there. So I didn't do the WHOLE hill but it still felt like an accomplishment. I wouldn't have done it by myself. I saw my highest heart rate ever to date, 171, on that climb. My supposed maximum HR is 175 according to the age/weight/fitness based formula on my monitor. So that would be 98% MHR! I had forgot to start my chronometer on the HRM until the middle of Meads Lane so I was off to a bad start as far as getting an accurate average heart rate and calories burned count. After Orchard Hill, the riding was pretty easy until county route 109. Just before we started to climb, we stopped to read a historical marker on the Onesquethaw Reformed Church building. It quoted the Scripture: " The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." The church was built from stones rejected in the building of the Erie canal. Likewise the farmhouse we could see on the other side of the road. I stopped my chronometer here and forgot to restart it when we continued. We started to climb up county 109 and Charles pointed out to me a spot near the bottom where a super-fit fellow church member, older than either of us, had a serious bike accident at about 40 mph. He was not sure what happened but the front wheel started to wobble and then .... wipe out! He broke his collarbone.
We came to a decision point. Charles said we could continue on straight which was the end of the serious climbing or turn right and continue up to a spectacular view. He said we were about half-way (yeah, right. try 1/4 of the way and the hardest climbing yet to come!) I felt pretty good so I said sure, let's continue. Onward and upward. .... to be continued!