urbanknight

Your max heart rate goes down, you gain weight, you develop health problems, your joints wear, you recover more slowly... it's ok. I'm not slow, I'm just enjoying the ride longer.

oldwinger14

The other nice thing about riding when older is that you think you are going faster than you really are!

seypat

After a long marathon training run this morning, it became very apparent that I'm getting slower as I get older. Now, if you're doing an endeavor that relies on a machine/machines,
and you've been doing that endeavor for 40+ years,
and there's been significant improvements to those machines over those 40+ years,
you might get duped into thinking that you're turning back the clock on Ol Father Time. But leave the machines behind and go out and try some physical endeavor that doesn't rely on them, and reality will set in quick.

Iride01 

Max HR really isn't a good indicator of power or your potential for producing power. When you get your heart healthy and all four chambers pumping with valves opening and closing at the perfect rhythm then blood moves more efficiently with less beats per minute. And more efficiently means more volume or gallons per minute going through your vascular system compared to a heart that isn't as healthy and not with all the chambers and valve working in perfect unison. LTHR will tell you more and that can be moved up or down, depending on how much you put into it.

The other things are a problem. But if you make time to deal with them they'll be less of an issue.

mcours2006

I'm approaching my mid-50s and riding with guys in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and there's nowhere to hide when you're the oldest guy in the group.

PeteHski

True, but when your personal max HR declines with age it generally means that you are losing top end power potential relative to your younger self. Older athletes who continue to train with some intensity tend to see less decline in their max HR with age than sedentary people.

urbanknight

Genetic problems can only be dealt with so much, but yeah I get your point.

terrymorse 

No, it isn't ok to get slower. It's inevitable, it's normal, it's a natural part of the aging process.

But it is not ok.

urbanknight

Gee whiz, when invalids gather together to support and console each other, don't come in and rain on their parade.

terrymorse 

It’s also ok when the less-abled get together to discuss how much it sucks to be less-abled.

My name is Terry, and I’m less-abled.

[Edited for taste.]

seypat

Not in good taste. Same for the previous comment.

88ss

I am retirement age, but I set attainable PRs and have fun with them. Despite being a year older I set a goal of beating my last-year's time to finish a particular route on a specific bike and I did it by .75mph, not much, and I did have newer tires and different pedal cranks installed on the bike, but I feel okay about it. Also did the same with another bike with no changes to the bike at all, maybe it was a good weather day or some other variable, but I was able to improve my average over a route by .6mph. Not huge accomplishments but at least I did not go backwards on everything from the previous year. Next year I will be thrilled just to get close to the miles or speeds I have this or last year, or maybe just to still be on two wheels as some I have known can no longer ride or have passed away. I did 160 miles in one week recently, a PR for the year and maybe last year too, not a goal but just happened. Also was able to go up a steel hill I regularly ride while remaining seated on my single-speed bike, nothing I had thought of but it just happened so I took note of it because I remember how hard it was to do the same hill even standing at the beginning of the season. At the beginning of next year's riding season I guess just still being on a bike will be the first PR of the year.

Carbonfiberboy 

I agree, it is not OK. Dylan Thomas had it right: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The fact that we get weaker is not an excuse to give up. It is not OK with me, not at all. I will fight, every inch of the way. This is what we do to keep our spirits up because yes, it sucks. Even though it sucks, we can still swing a hammer and we're not dead yet.

urbanknight

Sorry, I was not trying to be offensive by injecting some self deprecating humor against myself. I definitely feel like an invalid riding with people a generation older than me yet they are beating me to the top of every climb. I was just trying to make light of the thread that claims you don't have to slow down when you get older, because some of us certainly don't have a choice.

PeteHski

Of course some people don’t have a choice, but most people do actually have a choice and don’t take any advantage of it. Something like 80% of Americans don’t even do the minimum recommended 150 mins of moderate exercise per week. They effectively choose to live their later decades with age related diseases. Society has even normalised it to a large degree. A friend of mine (who is a fair bit overweight) is currently visiting his son in the US and joked that he felt super slim over there.

Mojo31

The bigger problem is finding the way back home.

freeranger

Am I getting slower, or just taking riding less fast so I can enjoy the ride longer? Both I think.

Koyote

Incorrect.

I hide in the draft, and (at 60 yrs old) I don't feel bad about it.

seypat

There's the rub. Some might ride it like it's their last ride ever. For others, they're trying to improve for their next ride. Maybe we have days of each. It makes you wonder. If you know it's your last ride EVER, what are you going to do? After it's over, are you going to linger, or go through the same ritual you always do? I've went through that with other sports through the years.

cyclezen

I totally get this - it is also my Overall Plan/Intent/Daily Mantra.
But I do 'modify' that Intent much more than I did in much younger times.
I'm no longer focused on Max Performance (haven't been there some time) . No Longer 'Dedicated' to a tight focus.
I'm Dedicated to Max Joy, Exploration and Appreciation of everything around me, in my observable world (which includes that which isn't easily connected to).
So 'Riding' now is a much bigger Universe. I ride for 'Improvement of my current self - even though it I'm clearly no where near what I was in prior days.
I ride in Social situations, groups and indiividuals whom I might not have ridden with before. I ride to Enjoy the Camraderie of a group and the ride environs.
ANd it's balanced quite a bit more with things "Not RIding'.
So, in Honesty, even though I still "Rage, rage against the dying of the light.", it's measured and mixed and much wider vision of me.
I'm OK with that, in fact, I feel so much more complete, more appreciative - a wonderful side of aging - finding Joy in your own, current skin.
...it's OK to work at the person you wish to become
Ride On
Yuri
EDIT: In that, I'm 25 minutes away from heading to a Sunday ride in which I will get 'shelled' for sure, if not on the 1st climb, certainly the "hill of pain", that 3rd bump... ANd I'm looking forward to it ! And the conversation after, with my small stout ale in hand !

seypat

I misread it then.

seypat

Best answer so far.

rsbob 

you are so right about today’s machines. I started on a steel Bianchi circa 1978 and would do 5 hour centuries. Now pushing 69, I have a bike which weighs 5 lbs less, has an aero frame and wheels and low friction tires and I can almost,ALMOST, run at the same speeds on the flats. Sure I have more time after retirement to train, but I certainly don’t have nearly the power or endurance, but it still makes me feel good, even with my artificial aids, to run closely to the speeds I used to. Yay, technology.

88ss

A few decades ago I trained all season to race in time-trials and I got faster and faster as the season wore on. I was really excited about the last TT of the season because I had gotten pretty fast for someone on a classic 36-spoked standard round-tube steel bicycle, but a few days before the event I got a bad virus and although I still ran in the TT, it knocked about two mph off my top speed. This past season as an old man I got quite a bit of riding in and noticed I was a bit faster than the year before. So I was able to time myself on a really nice day on the old TT circuit at about the same time of year the race had been decades earlier and found I could go as fast as I did when I was young with a bad cold/flu. So I am still competitive with the me from decades ago, as long as it is the deathly ill one.

jadmt

retirement age is a pretty wide brush..can be 35-100 years old..... I get it tho. I am almost 65 and just got back into cycling and started using the Strava free app so I keep setting pr's on rides I did not even know there were pr's to be set.