Dumb question, but have you explored recumbent bikes, trikes, electric bikes, motorcycles?

If you enjoy the great outdoors, and the bicycle was a mechanism to get out there, there are many options for continued enjoyment.

Find another way. There are always options.

CGOB has plenty of journals from people riding 15-25 mile days, people on recumbents, people on trikes. People are even starting to tour on ebikes nowadays.

I got fucked up by cancer. I experimented with options to find what works. Am I gonna win the Great Divide? Nope, sure won’t. Can I ride the route if I wanted? Yup, with some modifications I can totally do it.

Find your modifications and your options. Kick some ass.

Grieve. It helps to leave lots of room to be sad, feel disappointed, and also make internal space all the other less palatable emotions like shame or internalized ableism or self blame. Then, you can find either workarounds for the activities you miss, or other activities that fill those needs and interests for you. But letting yourself be really upset, without modulating it or rushing through it, is an important step. You’re also going to find yourself annoyed at people you know who make unrealistic suggestions or surprised at those who don’t have the capacity for compassion that you expected - make room to be annoyed and sad about that too. There are a lot of bright and lovely things that won’t have changed in your life, and other things that you might not have considered or encountered until after your life changed, but for the love of all of those things, i implore you to take a minute get very sad and be very angry. Trying to skip that step in my own life is something i regret - positivity becomes very exhausting when it’s a band aid on something you’re not letting yourself feel. Also, reading the writings and social media posts of people who have had similar experiences to yours can help a lot, both in terms of emotional processing and practical tips for dealing with that particular injury or issue. All bodies fall apart, but most of us are not ever taught how to deal with it and there’s a lot of weird emotions that come up. Highly recommend looking for memoirs, websites, social accounts, and whatever else you can find that pertains directly or tangentially to your experiences. I wish you all the best in navigating this.

Skating used to be whole life, my right leg has been held together by a metal rod for the last 7 years now.

Like you, it was caused by an avoidable miskate that was my own fault. I can still get on skates (though that took about 3 years) and I’m limited to doing that for about half an hour and can’t move fluidly.

For me the solution wasn’t to do everything I could to continue doing the thing I loved, but rather to let it go. These days I ride (small, quiet) motorbikes, walk my dogs, and have recently taken up archery.

Had I not broken my leg there’s a diversity of experiences I’d have missed out on, because I was enraptured with The Thing. There’s more to the world than one single hobby!

If you have close friends and family, do try and talk through how you’re feeling with them, and think about seeing a therapist - these sorts of limitations are hard to adapt to for everyone!

I wish you good luck in whatever sort of adventures you have next :-)

Sounds to me like you’re already on the path to having it figured out when you say something like “I know I’ll eventually find a bright side to this”.

I’ve had to come to terms with limitations myself. The thing that’s worked best for me is radical acceptance. Simply always accepting that the present moment is what it is. That doesn’t mean give up improving or anything. It just means that however I’m feeling in the present about my limitations is ultimately not that important. The sun will rise tomorrow regardless of what’s going on for me.

Looking at the picture “the pale blue dot” helps with this idea too.

speaking on cycling in particular, there is still plenty to enjoy about short rides! you can always take another mode of transportation to a new place and go for a short ride there if you’re looking for a new “project.”

I’ve been lucky enough to avoid physical limitations so far, but I’ve done a lot of long-term travelling. Are you craving a bike tour specifically, or is part of it wanting to be nomadic/outside/survival mode for awhile? You can always go rubber tramping/dirtbagging with a vehicle, stay at campgrounds and bring a bike with you to go for shorter rides. Hell if you can walk decent and wanna get real rugged, there’s always hitchhiking. I’ve met plenty of haggard old men with injuries and lives full of manual labor and drug abuse who are still getting around. There’s a million ways to travel.

I would suggest talking to a therapist to help you learn some tools to help you mentally adapt. Once you have the skill set to adapt to the mental changes, adapting to the changes in your physical abilities is easier.

Give yourself time and permission to mourn what you’ve lost, all of what you’ve lost, including what you’re capable of doing, your plans, your sense of self and safety/infallibility, and whatever else. Mourning looks different for everybody, but feel free to take cues from your culture’s public rituals around it, e.g. funerals, mourning periods, etc.

After that, you might want to look at what about all those things was important to you and see if there’s anything else that can provide those things, e.g. if it’s the travel that was important, find a different way to travel.

I’ve been living with a newly acquired “old man knee” now for about two weeks. Last Monday, I woke up, and my right knee hurt like hell and was swollen. I could barely walk but managed to get to the emergency room. The doctor said I probably overdid an activity. I have no idea what activity I overdid because I’m new to this concept of overdoing things, so I’ve started asking around. I’m like “hey, what would you consider overdoing this or that?” I wear my knee brace when I go out for a walk, I take my anti-inflammatory pills when needed and my paracetamol when needed, and I’m learning by asking people. I think you and I might be similar. I’ve never broken anything. Until now, I’ve been doing all the activities like I’ve always done them since like, I don’t know, age 18. For me it has been a learning experience, yes, and I think that’s a bright side you’ve pointed out. I feel more humble than I did before, too, and I think that’s good as well. I was planning on taking a very long, all-day walk in the country before this happened. I didn’t have a particular day programmed, just any time before the summer is over. I guess this sort of thing forces us to change plans. In your case, maybe you can’t live on your bicycle and do a huge tour, but you can totally compromise. If I were you, I might try to find a bus company that allows people to take their bikes with them. Then, you could do a bus and bike combo tour, right? If you have a car, do a drive the car and bike ride combo tour. In my case, I’m going to see how my knee improves (if it improves) and instead of a long all-day walk in the country I’ll just figure out a shorter hike to take, maybe ride on some transportation, walk, then ride on some transportation, and repeat as needed. You did not let yourself get old. I know from experience of getting there myself (now 48, nearly half a century!) that we do not make ourselves get old. Time passes by and does all that work for us. We can, however, make other types of decisions that we can be happy with, like the examples I’ve given you. I know it’s hard to make compromises even with yourself (I’m doing it, though) but I think with a little imagination you can find ways to change plans that can be satisfying.