Bush takes his bike on diplomatic trips and on his recent trip to China, went up against their Olympic team.
He’s not bad either, according to The Guardian’s cycling correspondent [hat-tip: Norm]:
the real give-away here is that his wristwatch is not a watch at all – it’s a heartrate monitor (HRM). Now that’s a real bike nut’s piece of kit. What this means is that when Bush was packing his bags to go to China, he wasn’t thinking about trade or Tibet. He was thinking: Jeez, three days without a workout … you know what, I’m going to take my bike – better take the HRM, too.
Last year, a journalist from Associated Press joined the president on a lap of his Crawford ranch. Bush’s heart rate, Scott Lindlaw reported, peaked at 168 beats per minute during the 18-mile loop. For a man of his age (59), that’s likely to be about 95% of his maximum – which is the sort of intensity only elite athletes train at. According to AP, Bush completed the ride in an hour and 20 minutes. That’s more than 13mph, which may not sound all that fast, but for an off-road cyclist, believe me, it’s shifting. His resting pulse – a good rule-of-thumb indicator of fitness – is down in the 40s. On this form, Bush could not only hold his own in age-related cross-country races, he’d win some.
He might even give Tony Blair a run for his money.
3 Comments
Well that’s me checking out of this site I’m afraid. I like the site – I worry about how uncritical a Blairite you are but I can live with that for the pharmacovigilance etc.
But this isn’t even a story. “GW rides a bike, you know” in a tone that borders on fawning. File not only under Cycling & Politics (?!) but also Sycophancy.
I cycle to work too, but I’m not interested in this – not up to your best Anthony
Paul,
You might want to complain to the left of center Guardian as well for publishing a full page article on the issue, which is where the article comes from.
The Guardian are well known for their sycophancy towards Bush. Are they not?
Loved the way the Grauniad got a couple of sneaky blows in this one too. like the bit about him worrying only about packing his bike. I tihnk the POTUS doesn’t actually pack his own stuff, wouldn’t he have a man or several to worry about it?
Having heard about his jogging I wouldn’t take on Bush in a long distance race meself either.