Sunday+November=Trevor Ride

Some of the new guys call it the bagel ride, but to me it will always be the Trevor Ride. As I chatted post-ride with Trevor today it dawned on the two of us that we've been doing this in the Winter since he was about my current age...soon to be 40. He'll turn 54 right around the time I'll reach 40 and I thought who better to talk to about aging than the ageless?

Trevor says that he actually was "in his best cycling fitness of his life" when he was forty. He grew up in England and was a national caliber runner and Jr. TT champion, but took several years away from cycling while raising his family. So, he really didn't restart seriously until his mid-thirties. Five or so years back on the bike and he was just killing it.

I don't mean to take anything away from him now, as he still attacks relentlessly until he gets into the break, but back then you would have to grit your teeth and ride the rivet just to sit on.
His familiar side to side head-bob meant that you'd soon be wishing for a flat or a light.

My own beliefs on aging as relates to cycling were heavily influenced, as are many of my thoughts on coaching, on something I was fortunate enough to talk to Dr. Andy Coggan about while at a coaching seminar at Harvard a few years ago. Andy pointed to the literature than proves that after age thirty, it's the VO2 max in fully developed endurance athletes that declines and that strength actually doesn't appreciably decline until our sixth decade. His suggestion was that attention to maintaining VO2 max was critical in our 30's and beyond.
It is in this vain that I like athletes to do a hard group ride once a week in the winter while otherwise building their base fitness with rides between Coggan levels 2 & 4. These "spirited rides" contain enough of a volume of intensity to do a really good job maintaining this critical component of fitness. And besides, they are great fun...not to mention that for me, they are a tradition.


Cheers.