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

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Controlling a fast-moving bicycle over any terrain is a complex synaptic juggling exercise that uses a huge amount of cognitive ability – I’m personally convinced that this is one of the reasons why cycling is so good for us, and why indoor cycling, though sometimes sensible, isn’t as mentally refreshing as outdoor cycling.”

In Chapter Two, It Is About the Bike, the author lays out a brilliant argument for how the UCI thwarted the evolution of the bicycle and credited it with its present state of suspended animation in Victorian design. The not-so-modern bicycle design, which Mr. Cavell contends, is a function of the ‘butterfly effect,’ much like the QWERTY keyboard. Is there a difference between those who've exercised their whole life and those who come to retirement to take up cycling? Are there different challenges and different problems? Currently, there’s a quiet revolution occurring in the ranks of middle-aged and older sportsmen and women. Virtually nothing happened in several hundred thousand generations, in terms of mass participation of veteran athletes in structured training, and now for the first time, in the space of just two generations, we are seeing a fitness surge at scale. Most of our parents and grandparents wouldn’t have participated in hard training post-marriage and certainly not after the birth of their first child, as soccer and netball were inevitably replaced with fondue parties and trips to the pub. At the very most, our parents may just have embraced (probably way too late) the ’70s and ’80s keep-fit crazes – jogging or aerobics. As our middle-aged generation ages, we’ve decided to plant our flag on the more distant but brighter star of elite performance, achieved through the application of quasi-professional sports science and technology. A must-read... this brilliant book shows you that getting older doesn't mean getting slower! ― Alan Murchison, The Cycling chef and masters cycling champion A true renaissance man of modern cycling, Mr. Cavell utilizes a holistic approach to bike fit, harnessing the entropic variability of athlete vs. machine and making the analytic an art.It didn’t occur to me. Maybe I should have. I don’t really see it with my clients. And that is my normal lens, “What issues do I commonly see with my clients? No. Cycling will probably help you to push out that date. I think cycling and exercise is the best drug that the pharmaceutical industry has never invented, and it will preserve your lifespan almost certainly, yes. But it can't make you immortal, or me, sadly. Remember, Dr Baker is going out of his way to point out that if you feel good, you should not increase the intensity, meaning no more watts or a higher heart rate, but instead add in a rep or two. Going too deep or too hard will increase the required recovery time and may lead to fatigue. If you assume your real (not inflated) FTP is 250, then your hard sessions using the Dr Baker algorithm will be 250 x 105-110% x 4-6 (8-10 minute) reps. This means that you'll be working at between 262 and 275 watts during those 8-10 minute reps. This isn’t going bonkers and sending your systems haywire — it’s a controlled elevation of training stimulus. I would imagine even a pro or their coach has to do a certain amount of trial and error. There is enough information out there in books for amateurs to have enough knowledge to be able to produce a good quality training programme that can be tweaked further as we gain that experience. There is also good enough software available for free to be able to monitor progress and learn to judge how to come into form, peak and avoid over training.

Would I push myself to that brink of physical shutdown, either in training or competition, at my current age of 58? That’s the main question behind this book. If the answer is ‘no’, then where is the line that I will not cross and what is its intellectual underpinning? If the answer is ‘yes’, and I should push the performance envelope without regard to age, then am I risking injury or even death? For all but a handful of the 300,000 generations of our ancestors, the upper-end of life expectancy was 30 years old. Being a grandparent was a vanishingly rare occurrence. As a result our genome has no genetic or biological imperative to survive beyond our late twenties. Which leaves fundamental questions unanswered for those of us who not only seek to survive into middle-age but also to perform into middle-age and beyond. But we are, of course, the pathfinders. No generation before us has sought to extract so much from their bodies so late in life, in sufficient quantities for it to be interesting or significant. The Midlife Cyclist Series I started an exploration into three questions: This seems to be suggesting a polarised training approach although he doesn't name it as such, which generally works on a 3 zone model rather than the more regular 7 zone model but whichever is used I agree with much of what is said with the odd caveat. I know you shouldn't rely on anecdotes, but I'm sure you know, and many people I know who do bike racing at a more senior age – a significant number have problems with their heart or something develops with their heart. And that may be connected, or it may not be, but that is a worry, isn't it for a lot of people? This subject goes in layers, so let's deal with it in layers. Overall, yes, exercise is tremendously beneficial for you – tremendously. That's the overall, overarching message. But then, within that, it's more nuanced. If you exercise moderately into middle age and beyond, even into old age, it is unquestionably good for you: the cognitive benefits or cardiovascular benefits, the feel-good benefits, everything is positive. But to exercise moderately – and by that, I mean the kind of exercise that the people we know do – there are question marks. Now, probably when all this washes after longitudinal studies and I do the revision of this book in 20 years time, it will almost certainly be the case that that was good for you. That's my opinion, and I have no evidence of that right now. So the book is taking up the evidence that we do have, looking at all the research conducted, and then on every subject, making an informed judgment. Phil Cavell: author of The Midlife Cyclist

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 I am not sure this is different between indoor/outdoor cycling. I suspect that off-road riding is more challenging because you are moving around so much. I remember that my upper body used to be in agony after a cyclo-x race or MTB race! Co-founder, bike fitter and bike designer, author. Phil rides a Seven Axiom XX custom titanium bike and an Airnimal Joey folding bike. He wrote The Midlife Cyclist and enjoys walking his dog, reading, politics and the outdoors. Phil's specialism is working with clients who have complex and frequently chronic issues. Phil is most at home working in a collegiate, multi-disciplinary team, to help clients resolve intricate issues. 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. It is also in this chapter that Mr. Cavell makes his first mention of virtual cycling when he writes,