Fifty Plus (50+) - The check ride

I know that in 50+ we like to speak of fun and enjoyment during our rides, but................that issue of performance gets under our skin..............we start looking at the time on the computer........and we start comparing this ride to previous rides. And they're off...:eek:

Do you have a favorite ride that you use to compare your performance from month to month, or week to week. We do. We call it the sprint. It is done off road on a limestone rail trail. The route is an out and back with 455 ft of climb (and thus descent) in a 9 mile ride. The rules allow for a 60 second rest at the turn around for water (and air). Time is counted as ride time, not total because there are 4 road crossings, one of them a major traffic route and you never know what the delay will be. You are required to slow for pedestrians and dog walkers, announce yourself before passing and giving a nice greeting as appropriate. It is considered bad form to blast by them at race speed. This adds an element of variability to the times and makes record setting or even good times impossible on the weekend. My youngest son who rides with me about half the time prefers this sort of ride to my usual longer "go and explore something different" sort but I will ride it with him about once a month to guage my current performance level. The elevation change makes for a huge difference between the out and the back which really tests two different riding styles.

Its April, riding season just got under way for real a couple of weeks ago and it is still way too early for this but yesterday we did the first of the year baseline "sprint". As expected, I was terribly slow with a time of 45min flat. My son who has 34 years on me was only a minute faster as he took most of last year off from riding while "recovering" from a second collapsed lung 2 years ago.

Later in the year we will complete this run in just a little over 38min. For me, this will mean not being able to get off the bike.......just lay it down and stagger away. I guess that this is similar to a TT but on dirt. (we do not use the rougher or trap rock sections of the trail for this as we hit speeds of 22/24 mph for brief sections during the return ride)

It's probably not everyone's cup of tea but even at 62 I like to see once a month or so where I stand. I have not hit 38min in the last 2 years but this year......................................

I have a loop I ride to work on Saturday mornings. The short version is 12.5 miles or so. About seven miles are a MUP with no grade crossings, and the final three miles are suburban with only three stoplights. I ride this route often, but I benchmark on it only Saturday mornings because traffic (both cars and bike) is minimal to nonexistent.

Last April on the hybrid, I rode it at 14.2 mph average. A week later, the first Saturday loop on my new-to-me road bike, I rode 15.5 mph average. My PB was last September at 17.2 mph.

The other day on the Portland, JRA without trying to be fast, let alone trying for a PB, 17.4.

I have a 17-mile ride that I've done just about since I started riding a few years ago. For a long time my goal in life was to break one hour (it's pretty flat - hey, this is Florida!) and I finally did in Sept 05 after many months of trying. Times crashed in 06, and I had one chemo-addled ride of about 1:14 in spring 06. By October I hit a PR of 54:20, which made me very happy. I've been hitting about :57 to :58 this spring, but I plan an assault on the fifty-four minute mark this summer. It's good to have goals.

I do a monthly time trial on a 20 mile out and back with no stop signs, traffic lights, etc. I'm not sure if I really do it to compare times from month to month as much as to push myself that hard at least once a month. In fact, I can't tell you what my time was on the last one without looking at my mileage log. My goals tend to be oriented toward keeping me active and moving. Hence, I try to ride an average of 10 miles per day over the course of a year. I'm pleased that I consistently go beyond that goal, but it keeps me honest and riding on a regular basis... even when the weather sucks.

I rarely ride full out, whether alone or with a group. The guys I usually ride with (mostly in our 50's) do a lot of climbing, some pacelining, but only a full out effort for time once a year.

I rode with another club's "A" group last weekend on a hilly ride they do once a month. For me, is was a pretty hard effort most of the time and I'm looking forward to next month's ride.

I've got one great ride from my house, down the spine of a local range of hills, to the Delaware. Very little traffic and pretty nice roads. The first time I rode my "fast" bike this season I did the ride for time. I now have a baseline ride that I hope to improve on over the summer.

I've only been riding regularly for four years, so I still make big improvements each year. Fortunately I have no "personl best" of performance in cycling in my youth to remind me of how old I'm getting. :)

I had a 14.5 mile loop on paved country roads I timed myself on quite a few times. Was trying to reach a 15 mph average. Wasn't till I added two additional miles, which happened to be straight and slight downgrade, that I actually got to 15 mph. I've since been going for distance and not speed. Now riding a 27 plus mile loop and any effort to push myself at this time will result in walking the last few miles. But now that it's been brought up, that may be a good idea to re-establish a route. And between beta blockers and age, 9 to 10 miles sounds about right. Particularly if the idea is to sprint. Yes, I think this will be something to do later today.

I think of the sprint ride as one form of training, and the distance rides as another. Its good to do both.

The short 9 or 10 mile route (mine is on dirt, adjust accordingly on asphault) is just long enough to do some good while still being short enough that you can give it most of your all and still finish. Later this year, I may take the TT bike out on flat asphault and start practicing the 20K road sprint.

You may want to warm up just a little because of the beta blockers. I find that they cause me to have some trouble with my legs during the first couple of miles.

Do you have a favorite ride that you use to compare your performance from month to month, or week to week.

I was going to say no but, upon reflection, I really do only it's year-to-year.

It's the Strawberry Ride in St Jacobs, Illinois. My wife and I generally do the 30 mile route on our tandem. I judge our overall fitness level with how we feel about ourselves while eating brats, strawberries and ice cream after the ride. On second thought, it might have more to do with the fun thing rather than the fitness factor so maybe I don't.

I have my own little personal 10 mile TT that I run from time to time at lunch. Its three miles (warm-up) from my house to the Dairy Queen on the edge of town. Then its exactly 5 miles to the turnaround in front of my dentist's house. Its a smooth two lane highway with a wide shoulder and little traffic, with 50 to 100 foot rollers. Then its 3.2 miles home, taking a detour by the elementary school to wave at my wife and her little charges. Sometimes I stop for a soda at the DQ.

I thought I'd never do it under 40 minutes (15 mph). I've barely broken 35 minutes on two occasions. I'm still hoping for 30 minutes one of these days (20mph).

I ride on my own but my regular coffee run is my marker. If it takes me 40 minutes for the 10.8 miles- I am about right. If it takes longer- there was a headwind and if it takes less- That tailwind must be strong.

I honestly don't care about times on road runs on relatively flat ground- But hills are a different matter. Most will be taken in the same gear (The lowest on the bike) but can I get the cadence a bit higher? Can I hit that low gear later? Or why did I attempt that one this early in the year?

I have lots of favorite routes, but there is no way to use them to gauge much of anything! Too many variables to concider, traffic(how heavy), weather,( this one changes every ride), time of day. what i did the day before, did I eat right, it goes on and on.

If you ride with a regular group, I think you can gauge it better by comparing how you stack up week to week.

I use two metrics - sanctioned or semi official time trials and my favorite the Old La Honda hill climb. Many who ride the Peninsula know their Old La Honda time. The climb is 3.2 miles long and averages 7.2% average grade with switchbacks to 25%. There is a club that gears rides to OLH times. If your OLH time is between X and Y then you are on the D ride and so on. The OLH time is a good predictor of performance and power production.:)

Having only been riding now for a rather short while I've of course been a bit conscious of my performance, and I've been using a couple of shorter routes to assess that. I try to ride each at least once per fortnight, and measure my improvement against the increases in average speed I've been able to achieve.

One of those routes is a 10km (6 miles) circuit through town which I ride in calm conditions and in the afternoon when vehicle traffic is reasonably heavy. It includes numerous intersections and a number of stop/starts. The other route is 15km around the outskirts of town, where traffic is lighter and which I ride when there's some wind around because it provides me with a couple of legs into the wind. Both routes share a short stretch around a small lake at the edge of town on shared gravel pathway where I have to slow down for pedestrian traffic and negotiate gate obstacles. I've chosen them because they are, to me, 'realistic' riding conditions.

When I started riding about 7 or 8 weeks ago I was struggling to average 16kph for the longer and windier 15k route, and 19kph for the shorter 10k route. I'm now doing them at about 25kph and 29kph respectively.


Mostly, though, I just ride - wherever and whenever I can. I'm only really trying to maintain around 20-24kph for longer sightseeing rides, and the practice and improvement manifests in how easy that is for me to achieve. Those shortish 'assessment' rides help motivate me to continue improving, and my capacity to ride further and climb better is improving along with it all.

My commute is ride check... except I'm not sure what I'm checking. It might be me. It might be the wind, and it may be how much air is in my tires, or how much junk I'm carrying.

I have several "calibrated" rides of varying length. Some are less than an hour for a quick check after assembly. Others are intended to assess performance...Such as a rough, chipsealed surface to gauge the performance of new tires, or a nasty grade to gauge climbing perforance.

I guess I'm the only one here who doesn't get all that excited about
speed and time. Most all of my rides are leisurly and I can tell by how
my body feels whether or not my strength and endurance is improving.
Perhaps that is why I prefer to ride alone?

I do log my miles religiously and will sprint home to escape the occasional
thunder storm. Nothing gets the juices flowing like the smell of ozone
in the air. :eek: