I returned to bicycletouring in 2016 at the age of 56, toured for 5 years until covid, and also some other medical issues, and returned just recently as a mate and also neighbour, aged 76, talked me into doing some touring with him. We are currently training for a tour in early December of about approx 500km round trip. I am way out of shape now, but as I have been using the gym, for mobility exercises since 2019, we are both using a personal trainer to get us ready for the tour, am I glad to be back hell yeah. What I have been doing since 2023, is Adv motorcycling, which has been enjoyable but not as much as bicycle riding.

As near as I can remember, the animal control officer that showed up after a dog bit me asked some questions, and announced to everyone: "Let me explain what the law says has to happen now." Because I was bitten on the street, not on the owners property, the dog needed to be taken to the shelter and observed for ten days. The shelter charges $40/day for this. Four hundred dollars is an expense that most people around here would find burdensome. That knowledge has come in handy when explaining to other loose dog owners why they should, for example, fix their fence. I don't know whether that law is local, or state, but I think that it's a good one.

But after the owner had told me "I could break your bones, old man", I really think HE should have been taken away for ten days of observation.

The law should be so stringent here! Way too lenient when it comes to dog attacks (or else they just don't enforce it).

I need a personal trainer .... but lack the focus/motivation to keep at it aggressively.
Even better would be a trainer/chef/cycling partner/financial planner/social scheduler/chauffeur. Have it all. But, given the possibility of only one I would choose a cycling partner and good mate - maybe like your neighbor. Cheers.

Was you ever stung by a dead bee? Got nailed yesterday on a bike ride, ~4 mi in on left side of upper lip... swelled up and then the runs but swelling was receding by bedtime. About 20 hours later, still looking like an aging movie star w/ a Botox lip flip on upper.

For anyone who doesn't get the allusion (I.e., isn't close to a hundred years old):

'Cyclists Are Now Obsessed With Aerodynamics. But Nothing Beats the Magic of a Superlight Road Bike,' this from a Cervélo R5 review but, I think it applies to me cuz... my average mph is not high (darn it) but... I keep using it as a metric and try to increase it. But then, there's the rub- if I put on aero bars and tucked into an efficient wind-cheating position, I'd increase my avg. mph. Used to have'm and, thinking about going back to it... e.g., there if you need it!

McBTC-
If you increase your speed on the flat from 12 to 13 MPH, you will have to put out 17% more effort. Wind resistance goes up as the square of the speed, and 169 is 17% bigger than 144. The magic of a super light road bike pales beside the magic of 25 year old legs.

Strava tells me that my mileage agg for this year (trainer early, outdoors once weather turned) just passed 1,000 yesterday. Total time actually moving? 75 hours, giving an average of 13.4 mph.

On a trainer where there's no wind, or outdoors when climbing, what's the % between incremental miles per hour look like up to maybe 20?

Don't remind me of that too often please. You have memories of where you were in 1974? At 76 now I can barely remember what 25 even felt like...

[QUOTE=spclark;23604121]. . . On a trainer where there's no wind, or outdoors when climbing, what's the % between incremental miles per hour look like up to maybe 20?

Of course, most or all of the various software alternatives designed to control smart trainers are programmed to replicate the increase of resistance into the wind as closely as possible.

So you can answer your own question (at least the part pertaining to smart trainers) easily by noting the percentage change the next time you do an indoor ride.

... actually, increases at a cubic rate (so, ~27% more) but you're right– I got old legs!

When you talk to a non-rider and tell them about gaining or losing an extra single MPH they just kind of roll there eyes. In a cage, it may be nothing. But on a bike that percentage of increased effort is huge, especially for our old legs. Thanks for the correction. I knew it wasn't just me hehe

Four minutes and 21 seconds (seemed much longer) later and I still don't get the allusion ...

So this is why I had to work harder to attain top speed? It's been close to five years since I've ridden though.

Assuming all conditions are the same except for time, if you go on a ride at an average speed of 13 mph that you previously did at an average speed of 12 mph, how much extra effort did you put in to go that one average mile per hour faster? About 27%... e.g., instead of 65 RPMs, same gears but a little over 80 RPMs.

That brings up an interesting issue. Supposedly, the ideal crank length for maximum production of power, irrespective of the size and conditioning of the rider, is 145. So, if going from 165 to 145 enabled you to easily cruise at about 80 RPM instead of 65, all other things equal, you'd more easily put out the added effort necessary to generate about 27% more horsepower.

Interestingly, that is something I could check out fairly easily– I have a pair of Ride 2 crank shorteners. Closest I can come to 145 with my setup is 141 (and raise my saddle 24 mm). But then I'd be in a more aerodynamic position so... we're not talking science here and do I really need to get there about 4 minutes sooner?

What does any of this have to do with bees, dead or alive?? But this is very interesting: "Supposedly, the ideal crank length for maximum production of power, irrespective of the size and conditioning of the rider, is 145 [mm?]". Really? This is astoundingly interesting. Where did you hear this? How do we reconcile this with the reality of 165, 170, 172.2 and 175 cranks on production bikes all over the planet??!! This sounds like an AI fail and I don't really need to remove a crankset to test it. Besides, a drivetrain is more than the cranks alone. The gear set is also important. A 145mm crank is about 20% less in potential torque than a 175mm. You won't even be able to turn the big small and all the rest are going to feel 20% harder to spin. Ideally the new crank would be married to an entirely new chainring set and cassette.

Some racers are apparently finding that short cranks suit them better ergonomically, thanks to a reduction in the required range of knee articulation.

That's one factor. Another is that a bicycle's drive train is a series of levers: the crank arm, the top of the chain ring where it contacts the chain, the top of the sprocket where it contacts the chain, and the radius of the tire where it contacts the ground. A change in the length of any one or more of those levers can be compensated for by a change in the length of one or more of the others.

In the case of the UAE and Visma team members, at least some of whom are using 165-mm or 160-mm cranks or even shorter, they've found that spinning lower gears (longer cog levers) at slightly higher cadences is more ergonomically efficient and more than makes up for the reduced leverage of shorter cranks. As shown by their race results.

If a cyclist lowers their upper body position to reduce air resistance, they go faster at the same cadence/power. I will leave the arithmetic to others. At 18mph the gain is greater than 15mph. And so on and so forth....

More than 1 way to achieve an equal speed. Efficient flow, more power. Ride efficiently or ride harder. Everyone has the same choice. Physics shows no favorites. At my advanced age, lower beats harder every day. YMMV.

.....and don't forget your readers!

While this position is not an all-day position, if I cannot get to this position comfortably - I consider the bike ill-fitting.

I have aero bars on all my bikes primarily because my left hand goes numb within half an hour when I ride with drop bars or flat bars alone, but they have the additional advantage of making me faster than even riding in the drops for a given level of effort. Including on climbs, oddly enough. Even if my ulnar nerve problem vanished tomorrow, I'd stick with the aero bars.

Totally agree!

I'm the luckiest SOB who ever lived. I met the person who would become most of that 53 years go and married her. She's not my trainer though. I do have a personal trainer, about 3" behind my eyes. He uses TrainingPeaks and is a hard taskmaster. At the end of every week TP generates a number which is my current fitness to ride. And there it is in black and white, how hard I worked or how lazy and foolish I have been. IME it's quite accurate. If it's 30, I can ride 20 miles no problem. If it's 80, I can ride 200 miles no problem. Seems sometimes like it's just ego, but OTOH it's also long life and happiness. Maybe nothing's all that bad about ego.

Musing about more of the above comments . . . Light bike doesn't make much difference IME. I can gain or lose 2 lbs. quite quickly and don't really notice it. Of course 10 lbs. is another matter, but I assume that 25 lb. bikes are not what most of us ride. My single of choice is 2000 vintage, weighs about 18 lbs. but is stiff and goes where it's pointed. Don't notice any obvious disadvantage when riding with others. That's all about my fitness. We ride a 36 lb. tandem, but that's 18 lbs. a person, plus the team has maybe 25% less wind resistance than two people on singles. We rode RAMROD on it at a combined age of 135, finished inside the time limit.

I also have aero bars on the tandem and my single, makes a difference. I don't use them if there's a bike within 25' of my front wheel or when hard cornering. I am a bad boy though and will drop onto them when pulling. IMO the first bike should be all the way down, second bike almost down, 3rd bike on the hoods. I see so many pullers on the hoods, slows the whole paceline. Yeah, we all got our personal little gripes.

Old-school, ... however - always preferring thin-in-th-wind. And wonderful days in which to ride nice places.
tally-ho, time to sign-off. Tires pumped.

Why didn't you sting them back?

I'd a bit'm back but didn't know what was going on 'til I got back to the car and saw the stinger in my lip... 'til then, thought it'd gotten tangled up in my stache but felt some burn and thinking... stop it in at a local brewery for a pint as a remedy. Glad I went home first for a pair of tweezers cuz next time I looked in the mirror... look'n freaky... interestingly, along the way, while my left jowl ended up swelling and drooping, it returned to normal but upper lip was still swelled. By bedtime, upper lip had come down some but entire face was swollen to the extent that I looked ~20 years younger... not a wrinkle to be seen. Should'a gone to a local bar instead to bed.

Sounds like natures Botox to me. A product in the making. You can mail me my consulting fee,