The Midlife Cyclist: The Road Map for the +40 Rider Who Wants to Train Hard, Ride Fast and Stay Healthy

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It drives us to develop skills and coping strategies. It is intrinsically a dynamic model. Outside we are also coping with ever-changing weather, road, trail conditions, and topography.

In the following paragraph, he immediately abandons this view in describing the less-than-mindful sequelae of virtual cycling when he writes. What would be interesting to know is whether, if you have limited time- say 1 hour a day, 5 days a week, it is better to go hard more often, or have 3 easy hours and 2 hard hours each week. Ep. 27: indieVelo’s Dr. George Gilbert on the Innovation That Could Change the Future of Cycling Esports Both coach Fox and Dr Baker agree that the majority of riding should be steady-state to increase our oxidative capacity — as much as 80-90 per cent of our training load. We have to learn to be efficient before we can learn to be fast. But even as midlife cyclists we can gain a huge amount of benefit from the correct dose of intense interval training.An amazing accomplishment... a simple-to-understand précis of your midlife as a cyclist – you won't want to put it down.' – Phil Liggett, TV cycling commentator If you're going to exercise immoderately after certain ages, is cycling worse or better for you than something like running or swimming, or are there different advantages? Is this where old school training, my chaotic school (my basic philosophy was to ride my bike enough in the winter for adventure, fun and relaxation, to be able to race myself match fit-ish in the spring), and the new-data school intersect? We all seem to be saying the same thing. That to build yourself into a persistence (or endurance) hunter you need to train yourself to be a hyper-efficient aerobic machine, ruthless at scavenging sustainable fuel stores at as high-power outputs as possible.

The ‘butterfly effect,’ known as ‘path dependence,’ is when decisions are made for social or political reasons and have long-term effects upon subsequent generations. The Midlife Cyclist offers a gold standard road-map for the mature cyclist who aims to train, perform and even race at the highest possible level. I guess the answer might be to plan rides for the weekend where you can trundle for most of it but 'bank' your threshold efforts for the fun bits e.g. that 10 minute long gravel secteur or that signature climb etc.I have had the pleasure of knowing Phil for a bit over a decade. We collaborated on hundreds of custom bikes for Cyclefit clients, and during that time he shared volumes of experience with me. When he told me he was writing a book, I was eager to read it. This is where I think virtual cycling could have a huge advantage over real-world cycling. It is massive potential. It is a virtually clean sheet. The virtual ‘bike’ only has to be a perfect exponent of physical potential. The book then takes you on a magical biological tour of your ageing body, to understand what’s happening at a cellular level as we all get older. It looks at how exercise (especially cycling) can be used as a panacea for solving the worst physical and cognitive effects of ageing as an athlete. It’s something I’ve heard time and again from the medical community (people not normally given to hyperbole) – no drug or medical intervention has ever been devised that has the efficacy and power of simple movement, at any age. Mindfulness is almost certainly where the gold is buried in terms of harmonising future performance and longevity for any athlete, but most especially midlife cyclists. Our contention is that professional teams will spend ever more resources and time in this arena, as a way of achieving and preserving athlete performance.