I have pretty much come to the conclusion that at age 70 (soon, anyway) I need more than 1 rest day per week. Not that many years ago it seemed to be enough. Now it doesn't seem to matter how easy 'yesterday was' (within reason, and that is part of the question here), on the 6th (or even 4th) day my sense of things is that I am too fatigued to ride effectively (from either a training or performance perspective). So some questions.

1) If you try to 'ride' on a 'rest day' (or maybe just say ride an easy day such that you have pretty good recovery), just how easy and how long (as a percentage of your weekly mileage) do you go. Or does this just not work. Even on my easy days I tend toward the top of Z2 and maybe that is not easy enough

2) I am seriously considering (for the next month, anyway) a plan where I ride 2 days on, then rest (no riding), and repeat. I have a bigtime hilly century coming up in about 4 weeks, so I was going to change my current training 'plan' to that structure. I would probably keep my weekly mileage in the same 200-250 range that I have been in, FWIW. Anyone ever tried this or just have comments on that?

3) From what I can tell the Grand Tour cyclists typically have 2 rest days over a 3 week period, and it seems that they ride on those rest days. I am hardly at that level, but I am curious as to what those rides look like. And I seriously doubt that me mimic'ing them is a good idea, if anyone out there is thinking that I have gone mad

Thanks.

dave