84-year-old logs 1,000 miles on his trike

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — As we get older, a lot of people say, age is nothing but a number; because it’s all about how you feel.

A Dell Rapids man isn’t letting his age slow him down, because he just keeps rolling along.

84-year-old Al Rave can’t seem to sit still.

“Well I worked all my life and when I retired at age 83, which was last year, I said to myself ‘I ain’t going to be a couch potato, I am going to do something,’ Rave said.

And that something is riding his electric trike.

Even though he lives at the Sanford Orchard Hills retirement center; he finds time to ride the streets and bike paths of Dell Rapids daily, putting on 10 to 12 miles a day no matter if it’s windy like today or wet like other days, it’s not stopping him.

“It hasn’t and I’m not going to let it,” Rave said.

In fact he’s put on over 1,000 miles this year.

“When I got over 500 I thought golly if I can do 500 why can’t I do another five and two weeks ago I was at 800 what’s stopping me,” Rave said.

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Rave says he feels blessed because he doesn’t have any health problems.

“You know I don’t know what it feels like to be old, I don’t have any aches or pains,” Rave said.

The staff here say Rave and his trike are all the rave.

“We watch for him around town, my kids know him by name, they yell out ‘hi Al’, nurse manager Katie Gauthier said. “It’s a great way for him to get outside and be a part of the community.”

Rave says determination is what motivates him.

“I got a lot that, I got a lot of energy, you just can’t put it in a bottle and say well I’ll pick it up tomorrow, I just don’t know I’ve been that way all my life,” Rave said.

Rave says his goal is to get 9,000 miles on his trike and says it could take a few years to do it, but as he said he’s determined.