bruce19

You are going to get slower. Just accept it and enjoy the other benefits. If you don't get used to feeling disappointed when you ride. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

OldTryGuy

Welcome to using STRAVA and I hope you enjoy it.

Just wait until you're 70yo -- you can do a good birthday ride --

https://www.strava.com/activities/3741404995

choddo

“you gain weight”

I’m not sure this has to be true. Cycling from about 40 (but lifelong love of it since the local church charity gave me a cobbled together cow-horned frankenbike one Christmas when I was a dirt poor 13 year old) until now over a decade later has got my bodyfat back under 13% and I’m in 32” jeans again. I eat and drink what I want, which is a large percentage beer and wine. Genetics have a big effect of course but when I look at how overweight my dad was by 40 and the state of the general population of the western hemisphere by their 50s, I reckon we cyclists are doing ok and if I can still turn a pedal at 70 I’ll be a happy man.

EJM73

Don't ride with power meters, Garmin's and shut off Strava. Then riding is fun and relaxing. Cheaper too.

Mojo31

If you started slow is it okay to get older?

choddo

What madness is this? 😄

EJM73

LOL...I don't have any of that on my old Viner and I seem to ride it more now that I'm older . Maybe because it doesn't record how much I suck at riding.

eduskator

Accept your body's limit, that's one of the hardest thing but most wonderful thing you can do. After 25 years old, time starts playing against all of us.

urbanknight

But keep the heart rate monitor so you know if you should keep riding or call an ambulance.

Absolutely. If they ever do "cure" mortality, this world is going to get horribly overpopulated and unpleasant to live in anyway.

MinnMan

Is "approaching mid-50s" the same as being in your early 50s?

I look back fondly on the days when I was in my early 50s and my MHR was still 184 bpm.

But I ride with some groups where there are some hellaciously strong guys in their early 50s. One of them routinely is on the podium in some of the tougher gravel events in Minnesota. And another hangs with the fast group for the early parts of Dirty Kanza/Unbound Gravel.

I'm in my early 60s and ride with guys in their 20s, 30s, 40s. It's not easy, but I can still do it.

genejockey 

A few years ago, I stopped at the bottom of a half-hour climb to strip off arm warmers, take a drink, etc. I glanced at my HRM - 244 bpm! I almost had a heart attack from that! What the.......!?!

But I checked my pulse, which was running around 100, so I figured it must be radio frequency interference. Next time I stopped there, same thing.

Then there was another time when I looked over my data from a ride and found that my HR had risen steadily during a descent, peaking at 170 bpm. That worried me, too, till I remembered I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary then, and later I read that HRMs sometimes do that as the wet clothing around them dries out.

So, as Reagan said, "Trust, but verify!"

genejockey 

One way to feel faster is to ride with people more out of shape than you are. This may require finding ever-older riding companions. At some point, you'll run out of them, though.

urbanknight

Absolutely. So far, so good.

Yeah, I've been accompanying riders who are recovering from injuries and surgeries lately. Age, however... last month I found myself being pushed up a climb by Ron Skarin, who is 30 years older than me! In the club, Bud is in his 80's and he sometimes waits for me. Guess that just means my strategy needs to be aimed at getting more fit. I hope I have a ways to go, but there are no guarantees.

PeteHski

Just have to be careful not to fall into the trap of the previous generation, who tended to take it easy and wind down their physical activity (especially higher intensity) in middle age. Science is now showing that this strategy accelerates physical decline and age related diseases. I saw this effect first hand with my father, who was an elite athlete in his prime. Unfortunately he basically stopped exercising in his late 30s and started down the path of slow cardiovascular disease and weight gain. I was less athletic than my father in my own prime, but aged 55 I'm vastly fitter than he was at 55. Night and day difference simply because I still keep pushing myself.

Koyote

I used to live in an area where almost every ride started with a steep (9% grade) descent on which I would approach 40 mph, and I would sometimes get HR readings in the range of 250 bpm. I eventually figured out that, with a less-than-snug jersey, the front of the jersey (including the zipper) would catch the wind and flap/oscillate very rapidly against the HRM -- you know, about 4x per second.

That doesn't always work. The first time I got schooled like this was with one of my old grad school profs. I was about 40yo, and he is probably 22 years older than me. And he absolutely thrashed me for a solid 50 miles. At one point, he got a puncture and had some difficulty fixing it...I just sat on the shoulder telling him to take his time.

MinnMan

I may be like you in that I didn't dedicate myself to fitness until late middle age (late 40s). I was fit as a teenager and early 20s, and then 25 years went by.

I do wonder whether this makes a difference. In other words, for long term health as an older person, how much does it matter that you've recovered what fitness you can muster, beginning at some later time, as opposed to life-long fitness?

PeteHski

I have actually been quite consistent with my fitness throughout my life, but never reached the elite level of my father in any particular sport. I dabbled in a lot of sports when I was in my teens and 20s and then whittled it down to just cycling and skiing in my 30s and 40s. Now I’m my 50s I pay a lot more attention to nutrition and training than I did previously and that appears to have compensated for ageing, at least over the last decade. My father’s fitness dropped off a cliff in his 40s and he just thought that was perfectly normal - which it was for his generation. I think he would be mind blown by the things I can still do in my 50s.

mcours2006

I guess I'm in my early mid-50's, LOL. I ride with a few guys who are older than I am, and they are still beasts on the bike. Myself, having an FTP of around 4w/kg, can still hang with most group rides, and even taking regular pulls. But I put in close to 20k a year in mileage in order to have enough fitness to hang with guys who put in less than half of that. It's true what they say: there's no substitute for youth...or talent.

terrymorse 

Theres another saying: training volume can make up for a multitude of training mistakes.

20k per year is simply huge volume.

jadmt

almost 65 and at least 40 lbs overweight ie 5'9" and this morning before my ride I was pushing 210 in my whitie tighties but my legs still feel like a younger man's legs. this was a solo ride 37F at start and 49F at finish I really wanted to do the full 100 at 19mph but the last 6 miles is up hill but no wind either way so can complain. One thing I did find that works really well is to mix liquid IV in your beer kind of gives you carbs while you ride and easier than chewing on a power bar.

datlas 

Kudos

Bacciagalupe

You, uh... Do know that Thomas died at age 39, right?

Carbonfiberboy 

And your takeaway is? . . .other than the big grin? I don't find his death in middle age funny at all.

rsbob 

I too will “not go gentle into that good night”. Training is my mantra by endeavoring to strengthen weakness's. Sure I will stop and take pictures of the sights, but when I am trying to beat a PR, “ain’t nobody got time for dat”. Today did a 9.5 mile TT and came in first for my age bracket 65-69 and 20th overall. There is a time to relax and enjoy the sights and a time to bring the hammer down. You can have it both ways and maybe enjoy cycling twice as much.

Today’s pics before the TT:

eduskator

Totally agree with you.