About age of starting in cycling to be a pro
 

Hi,
Can u pls help me to answer about my below question,,

I am 24.5 Yrs old.
i started cycling training 8 months earlier.
Initially avg speed on road bike on solo ride was 28 km/hr in 50-60km distance.
Now approx 32-34km/hr for the 80-100 km.

Time trail speed on my alloy road bike with aerobar & aluminum wheels . is 36km/hr for 40km distance .

Should i do training for winning of world championship ?
Is there any chance. pls answer

Get your mileage up to about 300-400 miles a week and incorporate a consistent gym program. Start racing every season. Do that for about 5-6 years and you will reach your genetic potential. Whether you will be a pro remains to be seen.

@Arun kumar if you're serious, you have a long way to go. Just ride a lot for a few years and get back to us. Don't worry about optimizing anything for now.

If pro means support yourself and family (better if you don't have one to support now):
If you are male, no.
If you are female, not to old, but too little money.

If pro means you are on a team that buys bike stuff for you, takes you on trips and you have a pro license and make 5,000USD/year - maybe.

You are starting at (male?) power peak. It will likely take 5 year to get your aerobic system there.
Your tendons etc will also take several years.

Local pro - you can get to ride late 20s to mid-30s, but not a World Tour pro.

If you want to be World Class faster - do track. That can be done is less time (due to miles) and there is less competition.

I'm not hating on you, OP, but I have come to really dislike posts like these. I mean, I'm glad you are out there riding road bikes and such, but there is so much to learn before the inevitable "can I too go pro?" question. I just feel that these posts marginalize those that have put in the time to be the best they possibly can. In the long run, 8 months is no amount of training. It takes year and years and more dedication than I, or basically anyone I have ever met, has.

If you want to be a world champ, I wish you best of luck. Dive in whole hearted. Find a coach and start killing yourself to get there. It is going to take a long time and you are going to have to make sacrifices. I ask that if you do take this plunge, you keep us updated. It's a long road and if you take a look at the training thread here, you can see what us normal, amateur racers have to put in just maintain being competitive at that level. I can only imagine what a top class competitor would have to put in.

$10 says the OP doesn't post again

Think that will stop this thread from going to 20+ posts?

Go for it, OP! Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't. Because until you try, you'll never know.


Even if you don't become World Champ, good things will come from your efforts. There is no down side to giving your best toward your dreams. Life is a journey, and the destination unknown. Don't wait until you're 70, wondering why you never tried.


I hope you do. I truly admire people that go after their dreams.

world championship? give me a break..

nothing wrong with having a dream, but if you do, you better also have a clue. let's see how you do in amateur races, and then start making decisions about going pro..

lol

A Masters World Championship is certainly a possibility.

#12

Well, I'm 15 years old, so age isn't too much of a limiting factor for me... but I could give you my perspective on it. You probably (most definitely) won't ever become the type of pro you see on TV (usually worldtour or continental pros), but you can definitely still become a fast Cat1 (& find an elite team that will provide you a bike and transport) with a couple years of dedication. Now I'm not quite there myself just yet, but IMO the most important thing you can do is find a professional coach and stay motivated. Invest your money in coaching fees, a power meter, and proper nutrition. My coach has been able to give me insight and tell me more about my body and how my body reacts to training than I would have ever been able to myself.

And a quick motivating fact... I just did the Mt. Washington Hillclimb on Saturday (deemed the hardest Hillclimb TT in the USA) the first place winner was ex-worldtour pro Phil Gaimon, but in second and third were two Cat1 men in their forties only a few minutes behind. That just goes to show even if it's too late to find a worldtour contract, you can still be fast enough to be up there with the real pros.

Good luck; I only have a few years of experience but feel free to ask any questions!

Okay, going to counterpoint on those "Two Cat 1s in their forties" since I actively race with them as a late-20s Cat 1.

Second place was a pro a while ago and has just recently gotten back into racing the past few years.

Third place would have easily gone pro if he hadn't started racing in his late 30s. A year or two ago he was getting into breakaways with Chris Horner on the domestic circuit the year after Horner won the Vuelta and failed to sign a contract.

I don't want to be too discouraging but pointing to 2nd and 3rd place on Mount Washington is basically pointing at two more guys who are pros, beat the snot out of the other Cat 1s (like me) and still can't beat Phil Gaimon who has admitted he isn't good enough to duke it out with World Tour level guys for years. You can still move up the ranks and have fun. That is what I did / do now, I am decent enough to still win occasionally in the local races but I am nowhere near going pro, it takes a special kind of talent and luck to make it to that level.

this is an entire troll thread now

Maybe trolling. Still worth a line or two. See this/link below. Unfortunately I believe Floyd. I believe Lance. That does not mean I condone them, it means I believe them.
This was a huge reason the path was taken other than pro cycling for my kid, and his choice. True or not cycling will lose talent as long as what is below is believed to be true.

Then also cycling is a sport that in general, is very unpleasant to be a pro.
http://www.bikeforums.net/19799929-post1688.html

Now this guy!
Started as a WT pro age 25 (yea, what is a pro? - anyway, WT works for me). Now 27, silver in world TT 2017 and very good race results too. Especially seeing the growth from 2015-2107. I'll want to see what he does this summer. We may hear of him.
For a world class athlete, the switch may be easier.
Primoz Roglic

3 years ago.

I'm going to spitball this while assuming it isn't a troll.............

If it's an honest question, the honest answer is that some people do peak in endurance sport in their 30's to super early 40's. Look into triathlon also. Seems the golden age there is about 40. Jan is 39. Kona winner. Quite a few 30's to 40 y/o pro triathletes. Some successful amateur time trial-lists are middle aged also.

Again, if it's an honest question......don't worry about the newbie gains. Worry about the long term plan of building massive amounts of volume into your life. Like, 1000 TSS/week. I average 400 to 500 a great week maybe once a month as a nobody. Probably only 350 usually. Pros in cycling and tri are doing up to 1000 TSS a week in buildups at twice the ftp or much faster runs. It takes a long time to taper into that kind of volume. Like, years.

Also, it will help to have realistic goals at that age. A "late onset" pro either has to be spectacular........or work next to free. Or actually work for free, as a "pro" as a hobby. So, taper your expectations of what a "pro" would look like. Maybe just a "sponsored by local joes" crit racer pro.

Otherwise, forget any of that data for now about how fast you ride or what power you make. It's literally nothing. I'm a meat popsicle and I can do around 25mph on my "prologue" TT loop in town at nearly 75 feet per mile elevation. That's still SLOW. Don't start thinking that TT speed is something worth bragging about until it's into the 30's. I can't sniff the 30's. Well, maybe for 2 or 3 minutes. Then I die. Those guys wave at fans taking a "rest day" of a TT while still doing upper 20's to 30mph in a TT. I stole back a puny little local KOM from a mountain bike pro who was on a road bike by going 33mph for about a mile. I sat in a random parking spot after just that and laughed and nearly yaked. Those dudes do that for an hour. Not two minutes.

Get to work son.

Someone owes TMonk $10.

It might as well be you.:D

I take venmo, paypal or (mailed) check if you're old school! Unless Arun kumar proves me wrong of course.