Originally Posted by
Hermes
Locally, it is my observation that those who want to and can race...race independent of age. And there are a lot of ways to skin the cat. However, the first thing that one has to do is manage expectations. New masters cyclists are going to get crushed no matter what field they race in until they learn how to train and race. There are always exceptions but that is what I have observed and experienced.
There are a lot of local races that offer specific age group racing - Senior Games, District Championships (TT, crit and road race) as well as a few that have older age groups. And one can always race in the 55+ age group although that is a very tough gang to hang with. And one of the faster guys is one of my teammates who is 65+ who usually wins. He was won over 70 national titles in cross, track, time trial, road and crit. And one of my teammates, who is 70+, goes to the Sierras and trains for a month at altitude in preparation for the TT championships. My observation is our older masters are insane, ridiculous, obsessed, awesome, tremendous athletes that are highly motivated. So I do not see any easy picking in this group. One can enter a time trials in the 55+ and score yourself against others of similar age.
Also, IMO, racers become specialists as they get older and cherry pick what races they do to maximize results and minimize risk.
Locally, each year we have a low key hill climb series. http://lowkeyhillclimbs.com/2013/ Local hill climbs are chosen for the series and there is individual and team competition. Last year, the promoter added weight adjusted scoring and age adjusted scoring. This creates additional leader boards that makes the racing more interesting and fun. IMO, this is the best run and promoted racing series in NorCal. Plus in Saturday's race, four racers did the climb FASTER than the Tour of California pros and one of them was a 50+ racer. Besides being a great event, the competition is amazing and even though I am low on the totem pole, being around and competing against really good cyclists makes it all seem normal. I perform better when I am surrounded by superior competition so I seek it out.
I knew I was doing something wrong!
