Cycling UK Forum

As an older person (62) I took up cycling casually once a week at the weekend at the start of lockdown and have continued since - although with a break in the winter between the end of November and the start of April.

I have been using a heart rate monitor, to make sure I don't overdo it, but recently acquired a power meter (left crank) as I was curious why my fitness and hill climbing (dis)ability seems so poor!

A standard ride for me is 50km mainly on the flat. My average heart rate is generally around 130, starting at about 120 and drifting up to 140 by the end. My average power on those rides is usually about 135 watts. I did a recent FTP test over 20 minutes flat out and it was 175 watts at an average heart rate of 155.

At 168cm tall and 80kg heavy (5'6" / 12st 8lbs) I could definitely lose some weight - 2.2 watts per kilo makes hills nearly impossible!

Comparing my performance with a 40 year old friend who is a similar "weekend warrior", his FTP is 250. He does similar rides with an average heart rate at 130 and average power 180 - 200. Like me he is overweight, but still manages hills that I would never attempt.

I have just acquired an indoor turbo trainer and was wondering what, at my age, I could reasonably hope to achieve if I train, say, three days a week for an hour or two on top of my weekend ride?

My bike is an aluminium Trek Domane AL4 which weighs 10.5kg (with pedals, bottle cages etc).

Recent discussion of heart rate and fitness:
viewtopic.php?t=151090&hilit=ftp

Jonathan

Jdsk wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 12:05pm Recent discussion of heart rate and fitness:
viewtopic.php?t=151090&hilit=ftp

Jonathan

Thanks for that, the thread was mainly around what is a true max heart rate calculation rather than fitness. I have thought the 220 - 62 = 158 method for calculating my max heart rate seemed a bit low. From that thread it seems like it is probably nearer 170 (give or take 5), which means I am cycling mainly in Zone 2, which is what everyone says you should do.

I was, however, more interested in what, at my advanced age, I could reasonably expect to achieve in terms of FTP, power generally and hill climbing ability if I train more frequently and consistently?

After recently having to walk the bike up Ditchling Beacon at the end of a London - Brighton group ride, should I just give up trying and buy an ebike?

My advice is to find a longish hill, which you can ride up at medium effort/medium HR. Time it, and then try and work up to two sessions up and down, then 3, then ect ect. Timing yourself each time. Ideally you'll be aiming to knock off 5% of the timed effort each month. I wouldn't do this more than 3 times per week (and never on consecutive days) u should start to see a real deal difference after the first month. I wouldn't worry about weight. Leave that till next year when the sun comes back, just try your best to maintain the weight over the winter. This kind of training will increase your muscle mass which in turn will help you to burn more calories while doing nothing at all!

This will help you build 'power endurance ' which will not only help you on the hills but add a lot to your overall fitness and ability to tackle bigger hills.

Turbo trainers are fine in winter for keeping you at 'base camp', but for power training, outdoors is always a better option. Even in bad weather!

I train like this January - April and it gives me a very good baseline to start doing more adventurous stuff. It also makes those early season big rides a lot more tolerable. There's no harm for you to start now, I always look a year ahead where I want to be fitness wise. Short term gains generally don't last. Same goes for dieting and turbo training. You have to take a longer term view. A tracking app or a training diary where it record your resting pulse of a morning is a very good idea. And good for morale also

Sounds like you are reasonably fit on the bike and with 2.2w/kg you should be able to get up pretty much most hills just a fair amount slower than your riding buddy. An FTP of 250 is pretty good and you might find you are tiring yourself our keeping at his pace.
I am 62 as well and 80kg and 5'8" so similar size to you and now have an FTP of about 210W after 3 or 4 years of regular cycling. I use a smart turbo in winter or bad weather and this definitely helps increase power and fitness but not really endurance (I generally don't do more than an hour)
Don't worry about max heart rate as it is only an estimate and your breathing and legs will stop before you can get to a heart rate that will cause harm, unless you have some sort of pre-existing problem.
I cycle with a pal who us stronger than me and find the hills really hard when with him, however when cycling with the OH who is a bit slower than me I find the same hills really easy if I go up at her speed.

Don’t give up!!!

Sorry, slight over-reaction.

I’m no medic, and although one of my bros is a sports physiologist among his other talents, I’m not, but I am 63yo, and although I haven’t made any attempt to measure it for ages my FTP is probably about the same as yours. Last time I did a test, I was able to sustain 150W for an hour. My max HR seems to be c170bpm., although I don’t deliberately push to it.

I cycle mixed paved/un-paved using what is nowadays labelled a “gravel bike” and the number of rides I do varies from two a week in the depths of winter to sometimes five days on the trot in summer, so I manage to get a fair bit of “on-bike happy time”, and that’s what I value, rather than a load of performance stats. And, my bike weighs about 15kg in normal ‘local ride’ trim.

Comparing yourself with someone years younger is bound to lead to disappointment/nostalgia - just look at difference in sustainable HR at your relative ages to understand why.

Getting off and pushing isn’t a defeat, I sometimes do it in extremis, although I do wonder whether your bike might be too highly geared for your power capability. What is your bottom gear?

Anyway: you have plenty enough power to go on interesting bike rides, and the more you go on, the further/steeper you can do.

TheLastMan wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 12:37pm
After recently having to walk the bike up Ditchling Beacon at the end of a London - Brighton group ride, should I just give up trying and buy an ebike?

Yes, definitely!

Well, ask a silly question and you get a . . .

PS The points you make are interesting and relevant (to me anyway) but shouldn't have led you to that question IMV. There are sometimes (good) reasons for getting an electric bike but that certainly isn't one of them IMV. I write with some feeling not because of what you have said but because of where we as a society have got to if you feel that is the next question to ask.

horizon wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 1:22pm

TheLastMan wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 12:37pm
After recently having to walk the bike up Ditchling Beacon at the end of a London - Brighton group ride, should I just give up trying and buy an ebike?

Yes, definitely!

Well, ask a silly question and you get a . . .

PS The points you make are interesting and relevant (to me anyway) but shouldn't have led you to that question IMV. There are sometimes (good) reasons for getting an electric bike but that certainly isn't one of them IMV. I write with some feeling not because of what you have said but because of where we as a society have got to if you feel that is the next question to ask.

^^ What he said.

FTP, functional threshold power values; a particular FTP is something that is, in my humble opinion, an unhelpful thing to fixate on. Keeping fit and, maybe improving fitness too, is a good goal to aim for but the better goal by far is to enjoy your cycling. If the hill’s too steep to cycle up then walk the last part of it, the important thing is to have the ride and in time you’ll ride further up the hills. Training has a value, and particularly so against specific tasks, but I try to build training into a ride rather than riding to train … but whatever works for the individual.

Functional fitness can come with time. My fitness has improved over the last year, not massively so but still there, and it has come through taking moderate and low intensity exercise each day - that’s helped me loose a bit of excess weight too.

Walking Ditchling Beacon, give yourself a pat on the back and a round of applause for getting there . If you can then maybe fit a lower gear for next year, but never fuss about walking a hill ‘cause you’re out there and doing stuff.

Thanks for all the encouraging replies folks!

I guess I am just suffering a bout of nostalgia, and have to come to terms with the reduced potential that comes with getting old. I will use the turbo trainer this winter. I still have a 9-5 job, 5 days a week (sedentary, unfortunately) and a recent minor accident has given me an aversion to cycling in the dark, so I don't have much choice Monday to Friday.

The problem on Ditchling Beacon was that by then, after about 70km of rolling hills and a constant headwind, my legs basically seized up with cramp at any hint of a significant hill. Once off the top of the Beacon it was mainly downhill into Brighton. I wasn't the only one to walk up though. There was a 35 year old guy (6'2" tall and I reckon at least 16 stone) who joined me. Two others got a lift from the support car up to the top of the hill, but I was determined to do it all under my own steam. Have to say even walking up Ditchling was an effort!

On the weight front, I was 85kg last September, so have lost 5kg (11 lbs) in a year mainly through diet - low GI plus 8 hour eating window intermittent fasting - although I am sure the cycling helps. I am aiming to drop another 5kg by the summer, which is still a BMI of 26.5 so I would still be overweight. My ultimate aim is 70kg (11 stone), but I haven't been that since I was 25!

The stock gearing on the bike is Shimano Tiagra with 50/34 crankset and ten speed 11-32T cassette. After the London to Brighton I found Shimano have a ten speed 11-34T cassette compatible with Tiagra (and only 20g heavier) so bought that for £30 and fitted it as a replacement. That gives me a 1:1 lowest gear which made a small difference on the hilly bits of a recent circuit of Richmond Park.

I also replaced the stock heavy and slow tyres with a pair of 32mm Bontrager R3 TLR for £80 which saved 256g in weight, and made a major difference to the way the bike feels and handles.

I could knock another 190g off by swapping the crankset to the 105 version of 50/34, but that would be £250. At £1.30 a gram that is dubious value. I have promised myself a lighter bike when I reach 75kg

TheLastMan wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 4:42pm My ultimate aim is 70kg (11 stone), but I haven't been that since I was 25!

Apparently that is what you should be now. You had stopped growing by the time you reached 25 (or earlier!) and even allowing for some extra muscle, that therefore is your ideal weight. I'm 5'10" and 70 kg but I had to lose some weight to get there. You should be able to wear the same waist size as you did at the age of 14 (I think it's 14). Just keep up the good work!

(BTW, I walked up Ditchling Beacon in 2020 (aged 67) but then I was carrying 25 kg in camping gear on the bike. )

I can sympathise with the challenge of trying to keep fit while working full time, and it was a factor when I decided to cut from a full time job involving an hour or more commute each end of the day. Even trying to keep active by cycling to the station some days, walking from Euston to the office, and walking between sites across central London wasn’t doing it. Working part time, within cycling distance of home helped massively.

Can you get any rides in locally on weekday evenings?

horizon wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 5:05pm

TheLastMan wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 4:42pm My ultimate aim is 70kg (11 stone), but I haven't been that since I was 25!

Apparently that is what you should be now.

Yes, I am well aware of that fact!! No need to rub it in...

But I don't know many people in their 50s and 60s who would be as light as they were when they were 25, in fact I can't think of any!
I am sure there are plenty in the cycling community, but the general population puts on weight fairly relentlessly throughout their lives.

A rule of thumb is that the average person in the UK puts on one pound every year between the ages of 25 and 70. After that weight tends to gradually decline.

At 25 I was 70kg / 11 stone / 154 pounds. By that rule, at 59 (when I started cycling), I would be 188 pounds / 13 stone 6 pounds / 85.3kg.
I was 85kg before I started the cycling, so the rule of thumb was spot on.

Nearholmer wrote: ↑4 Nov 2022, 6:06pm I can sympathise with the challenge of trying to keep fit while working full time, and it was a factor when I decided to cut from a full time job involving an hour or more commute each end of the day. Even trying to keep active by cycling to the station some days, walking from Euston to the office, and walking between sites across central London wasn’t doing it. Working part time, within cycling distance of home helped massively.

Can you get any rides in locally on weekday evenings?

Thanks for your sympathy, much appreciated

My last job was like yours, 5 (usually long) days in the office and a one hour commute each end of the day. I rarely felt motivated to get on the bike after work.

However, I have just started a new, much better paid, job - and I need the dosh right now as I have three offspring at University! I also need to get a bigger pension fund before I can retire, and my new employer has a great scheme. No chance of retirement or part time working for me at the moment. It's lucky I enjoy my work!

The new job is much more flexible about where I work, so I can now work three days from home and two days in the office. During the summer I will now be able to get at least a one hour ride each day, either before or after work on the days I am working from home. Unfortunately the office is a 17 mile ride through central London during rush hour (Hounslow to Canary Wharf), so I won't be doing that.

That is why I bought the turbo trainer to keep moving over winter.

Ive found Zwift and a smart trainer to be a complete revelation. Forget your local hill you can replicate the Ventoux and Alp d'huez and trust me that makes a massive difference to your power output and general fitness. Climbing for 70 to 90 minutes is virtually impossible in the UK not so in your garage

As for your figures they seem reasonable compared to my compatriots on Zwift but everyone is different. I'm 57 ..I'm comfortable averaging 200w for 45 minutes...my average heart rate on a 2 HR ride is about 114...peaking at 150 when really giving it some...at rest it's 55.

On the road I simply don't work hard enough...when the figures are facing me on a 32 inch screen with folk all around me busting a guy I work much harder...

That said as mentioned my long distance endurance falls away on the turbo...there's only so long you can do it.