Originally Posted by
spinconn
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I suppose I should have started the thread with that issue.
I am no doctor of medicine, but my simplified understanding is this. Most folks who exercise strenuously and daily, be it road cyclists, runners, or other sports, have to take one or two rest days a week. Otherwise, they eventually get repetitive use injuries to joints and muscles. Most often with cyclists it is knees.
It is not about energy but muscle and soft tissue recovery. It is the same issue with weight lifting, where lifters only lift 3 times a week to allow the muscles to recover. Use breaks down the muscle tissue at the cell level and when that tissue heals it restores at a greater size and strength, which is why muscles get stronger with exercise. Absence of recovery time prevents the restoration process and results in weaker tissue.
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First, I agree with Mev, Doug64, Gauvins, and Phughes. (But where Mev said "... I cycled 1194 days in one 9 day week...", I suspect he cycled 1194 miles, not days.) They all had useful advice.
My bike tours before I retired were one week. Now that I am retired, I do not have the hassle of bosses demanding that I get back to work. Thus, can do longer trips. I am now 70 years young.
I have no medical training other than the first aid training that most people have.
I had some weird health issues when I got home from a month long tour eight years ago, my Dr diagnosed a strong protein deficiency, and a few other issues. Now when I do a bike tour, backpacking trip, or other strenuous trip I try to have a 20 gram protein bar at the end of every day when I am setting up camp. One thing that I have often observed is that bike touring cyclists often should eat more protein on tour. You can get by without for a week long trip, but the longer trips, you need that for muscle building and recovery.
Knees, I have always had bad knees, especially backpacking down hill, has been a problem since I was in my teens. I discovered about a decade ago that a Patella Tendon band is especially useful for me. I am trying to get ready for both a tour in June and also a brevet next month, rode 67 miles two days ago on my heavy touring bike on a gravel trail, that was the longest distance that I have ridden since the snow melted here this year. And for the last half of that ride I needed a Patella band on my right knee. I am not saying this is a magic remedy for everyone, but it certainly helps me. I carry a pair on every long bike ride and on backpacking trips. My point is that sometimes there are simple remedies. That said, my Dr that knows this stuff had knee surgery last year, there was no simple remedy for him.
All cyclists are known to have poor bone strength, including roadies. Runners and weight lifters stress their bones that result in more bone strength, but cyclists don't. For that reason, when I go to the gym (three times a week in winter, once a week in summer), I always try to stress my leg bones on a leg press to aid in bone density. (And other exercises for other bones.) This lack of bone density is common for cyclists and also common for older people. If you are an older cyclist, that makes you especially susceptible. Two years ago I had a bone density test, result was good. A friend of mine crashed his bike about a decade ago and broke a hip so badly that he no longer cycles, but he had not tried to do anything to improve bone strength. My point here is that bone strength might be a bigger issue than the other things you cited. But that is something that we can work on ourselves, which many people do not do.